


What Happens in Vegas

by SomewhereApart



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereApart/pseuds/SomewhereApart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(THIS STORY IS ON TEMPORARY HIATUS. LOOK FOR THE RETURN OF VEGAS ROBIN AND REGINA AFTER BREAKING IN ROBIN AND REGINA HAVE HAD THEIR FUN.)</p><p>Robin and Regina meet one night in Vegas, and wake the next morning to find themselves with little recollection of who each other is, what exactly transpired the night before, and how they ended up with these wedding bands on their fingers. Regina's hopes for a quick and quiet annulment are dashed by the realization that in her drunken stupor, she shared the "good news" with her mother - who then told her entire family. How will these two suddenly-married strangers sort out their drunken mistakes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following prompt from the oqpromptsandfanfics tumblr: Regina goes to Las Vegas for her cousin's bachelorette party and ends up marrying a total stranger in a drunken stupor. The logical thing would be to get a quickie divorce and pretend that this never happened. But last night Regina, in her intoxicated state, called her mother to share the good news. Now Cora, who always ragged on Regina for being unmarried and childless, not only knows about this but has told Regina's whole family from her stuck up cousin to her aging grandmother. The stranger, Robin, comes up with a plan - stay married for the next 6 months and then get a divorce after telling everyone that it just didn't work out. Regina would save face in her family by not getting a quickie divorce, but they would still be free of their mistake. 
> 
> Note: this story is scheduled to be updated on the 7th of every month, so as not to cut into the writing time for Breaking In. I appreciate your patience!

Her head is pounding. Throbbing. Pulsing. The pillow she's resting on is soft, the sheets are soft, but it does nothing to make her feel any less like death on toast. Oh, God, toast. Ugh. Even the idea of food, of anything, has her stomach rolling violently. She swallows, her tongue like thick cotton, and for a moment she contemplates actually getting out of this bed and heading for the bathroom, or at least opening her eyes, but it all just sounds too painful.

What the hell did they do last night?

She has memories, hazy memories, of a club on the Vegas strip, and Kathryn in her bachelorette tiara and sash, and free drinks, so many free drinks. And blue eyes, and prickly stubble against her neck, warm hands on her hips. Regina is fairly certain she behaved in a way that was less than virtuous last night, but, well, there'd just been so many shots…

God, she has to pee. Really, really has to pee. She might have to actually leave this bed.

There's a sigh next to her, deep and heavy, and her eyes snap open (then slam back shut because the light, little as it is, is excruciating).

Oh, God.

She shifts, just a little, a tentative twitch of muscles, and is vividly aware all of a sudden that all she feels against her skin is cotton. Just sheets, nothing more.

She is naked.

She is naked, and there is someone else in this bed, and she's gone from being fairly certain she was less than virtuous to absolutely positive she did something slutty.

"Oh, God…"

That one's out loud, she realizes, when the man she hasn't had the guts to roll over and face lets out a little grunt, and a "Shhh…."

Oh, good, she's not the only one with a miserable hangover then.

If she doesn't get up soon, she will wet this bed, and as mortifying as that would be if she was alone, it would be immeasurably more so with an audience. So she moves. Gingerly. Pushes herself up on arms that ache (her head, oh God, her head, the pain goes sharper, stabs and stabs into her temples, the back of her eye, Jesus, God, she's going to die), draws her legs over the edge of the bed slowly, blows out a breath at the swell of nausea she feels just from sitting.

She cracks her eyes open again and through blurred vision, she realizes this is not her room. This must be his room. Great.

She has to swivel her head to find the door to the bathroom (either that, or she's about to pee in a closet), and it is agony.

Regina manages to stand (and her bladder goes full-tilt then, the kind of painful, bloated pressure that has her unsure whether she should quicken her steps or slow them), and make her way to the bathroom, more grateful than she ever thought she'd be to discover it has a separate area for the toilet. A separate little room, with a door, which means she can flip on the bathroom light (oh, God, torture, light of any kind is torture), shut the door behind her, then duck into that little toilet alcove and leave the lights off in there, crack the door and pee in near blessed darkness.

She is dying.

Alcohol poisoning is a definite possibility. Everything hurts. Even peeing hurts, and she seems to do that for  _days_. She didn't know the human bladder could hold this much, and her head is pounding, pounding, her stomach hot and unsteady. She drops her elbows to her knees, and drops her head into shaky hands, fisting her fingers gently in her hair as her bladder empties.

When she finishes, she lifts her head, palms scrubbing across her face as she does and she feels something against her cheek. Cool and metallic. She blinks and frowns, looks at her hand. Swallows.

No.

Oh, no.

No, no, no.

_NO._

There, right there, on her left ring finger, glinting in the dim light of the room, is a gold band. A wedding band.

For a moment everything goes a bit blurry - more so than it already was - and she can feel heat and panic prickle and crawl along her skin. She didn't. She couldn't have. Who did she - oh, God.

The punch of adrenaline has her stomach lurching again, and this time she can't do anything to stop it.

It's a small, miniscule, itty bitty token of fortune that she manages to grasp for the trash can in time to avoid emptying the contents of a night of drinking and bad decisions directly onto the floor.

**.::.**

He can hear her.

Robin can hear her, over the thudding sound of his own heart in his ears, he can hear the woman he'd clearly spent the night with retching and coughing and dear God it must be like  _The Exorcist_  in there…

And he knows the polite thing to do, the chivalrous thing, would be to get up and make sure she's alright, but he'd rather more to drink last night than might have been wise, and right now the idea of moving sounds impossible. So he tells himself she'd probably prefer her privacy while she bolts her guts up in his loo, and stays put, his eyelids glued tightly shut, his cheek against the pillow, breathing shallowly both for fear of what a deep breath might do to him and because he can smell how badly he needs a toothbrush with every exhale.

Last night had been… Well, it had been wild, to say the least. There are empty patches, particularly late in the evening. Or early in the morning, as it were. Blanks he cannot account for, but he remembers her. Remembers meeting her anyway.

Regina. He remembers her name, at least. Remembers that it was Regina, because he'd said something about royalty, about it being fitting for her to be named as a queen. In his defense, he hadn't been sober at the time either. It wasn't their first stop, that club. No, it had been perhaps their second or third? He's not entirely certain - he's spent much of this trip doing some form of partying or another. The whole excursion was meant to reclaim his good nature, since John and Will and August have told him again and again that his years of single parenthood since Marian's death have made him a terrible, sadsack, stick-in-the-mud. They'd dragged him here, had had him leave Roland back home with the babysitter he so adores so they could all "let loose" in Sin City for a few days.

He's gotten a bit looser than he planned, it seems.

But the boys will be proud of him, he thinks with a touch of bitter resentment. They would - they will - a night spent blotto with a beautiful woman (a night he recalls involving soft breasts and a wet mouth, dark eyes and gasping moans) would be just what they think he needs.

Whoopee for him.

The toilet flushes. Christ, that's loud. It shouldn't be that loud.

He needs aspirin.

Aspirin, and water, and to never have to move again.

Another flush (dear God, please, stop with the noise…).

He squeezes his eyes shut harder then, as if that will somehow keep out the sound.

Minutes pass. Or maybe seconds, or maybe years, he's not sure. She doesn't emerge, and Robin somehow manages to slip back into something resembling a doze, hovering in that space just between sleep and waking.

**.::.**

At least her new husband is attractive.

That's what Regina things, bitterly as she finally emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy white hotel robe, all evidence of her excessive vomiting washed away (everything except the smell that still lingers, but what can she do about that?). She's borrowed some of his mouth wash (but half of everything that's his is hers now, right? Oh God, oh  _God..._ ), and wiped away some of her smeared makeup. Not enough to leave her face bare, not enough to make her look like less of a hot mess, but enough to get rid of the heroin chic look she'd been sporting.

He's still asleep, the asshole, but at least he's attractive.

At least if she had to have the incredibly idiotic misfortune of going home with a stranger, of please-say-it's-not-true  _marrying_  a stranger, he's not someone she's horrified to have woken up beside.

She remembers him now. Now that she can see him. Mr. Blue Eyes, name she cannot quite recall. But she remembers the way he'd smiled at her, those dimples, the lilt of his accent. His friends had been drunk and annoying, but he'd been a few drinks behind them, and while their two groups had set up a semi-permanent mingle (they'd occupied neighboring couches in the club, she recalls), Mr. Blue Eyes had pulled her into an actual conversation. A flirtatious one, but one nonetheless.

There had been dancing, and a drink that glowed in the dark. And more dancing, with his hands on her hips, on her back, on her ass. He'd smelled good. The whole place smelled like booze and sweat and dancing, but up close, he'd smelled like pine. They'd had to yell to hear each other, had missed half of the conversation, but he'd been… nice. Nice, and sexy, and a decent dancer, and she remembers that she'd rather enjoyed his wandering hands, remembers…

She gulps at a vivid memory of him behind her, her body molded to his as they danced, curves pressing and sliding and him hard against her rear, remembers her hand falling over his against her belly and guiding it down, down, down…

Oh God, she definitely did something slutty last night.

 _At least you married him_ , a dark, sarcastic part of her mutters, and Regina actually snorts a laugh into her palm, tears pricking her eyes for a moment because this is just a mess.

A horrible, horrible mess.

Vegas weddings are easily annulled, right? This can all be undone with a little bit of embarrassing paperwork, and nobody will ever have to know. What happens in Vegas  _stays_ in Vegas, right? And those traitorous bitches who let her run off into the night with this handsome stranger and  _get married_  will keep their mouths shut, or so help them, she will rain down terror upon them and their families the likes of which they cannot even imagine.

She's not sure how, but she will.

Okay.

Time to get this handled.

Time to undo this mistake.

Starting right now.

**.::.**

The bed jostles, and Robin lets out an undignified  _oof!_ , waking fully as she plops herself down right next to his hip and gropes for his hand.

"What the bloody, sodding hell-"

"Shut up," she hisses, her fingers gripping his left hand tightly, twisting it and God, what did he ever do to her to deserve this kind of treatment? "And wake up."

"I'm awake," he grumbles, rolling onto his back and swallowing against the press of nausea before blinking his eyes open.

She's stunning.

He remembers her as beautiful, but she is… Even like this, even looking pale and grouchy with faded mascara and kissed-bare lips, she is stunning. He's suddenly wishing he could remember every technicolor detail of the night before. Especially considering the look on her face - the one that says last night will never be happening again and probably shouldn't have in the first place.

"Do you remember what we did last night?" she questions, accusatory but also a bit desperate, a bit lost.

"Not as much as I'd like."

It's out of his mouth before he can help it, and he winces even before she slaps at his arms, her face pulling into a scowl. Even wincing makes his tender head throb harder. He should really look into that aspirin...

"You're so much less attractive with your mouth open," she grumbles, crossing her arms tightly over herself and looking a bit disgusted, but with him or herself, he can't tell. The robe makes her look small, loose against her shoulders, and she tugs at the collar with one hand, closing where it gaps, hiding herself.

Shit.

He's an absolute arse.

He sits then (and oh, there's the brief urge to heave again), and sighs, reaching out to touch the soft terry at her elbow. "I'm sorry," he tells her sincerely. "That was crass. I'm just a bit thrown, is all. And you are incredibly beautiful."

"I look like hell."

"If you look like hell, love, I will dance with the devils."

She softens then, just a little, the corner of her mouth twitching into something that is almost a smile before she pushes it down and away. Her brow knits, something like a wince, then smoothes again. It has him wondering if she's battling the same sort of vise-to-the-skull feeling that he is.

And then she flattens him.

"We're married."

Robin blinks. Frowns. "What?"

She holds up her left hand, then looks pointedly at his, and when Robin looks down his jaw drops. There's a gold band there that hadn't been the night before, a cheap thing, but there nonetheless. Robin's mouth goes drier, words sticking in his throat as he flounders, jaw working, trying to form words that won't come.

"Yeah," she agrees. "That's pretty much what I said."

"I…" His voice squeaks, breathy and tight, so he clears his throat and tries again. "That I  _don't_  remember."

"That makes two of us," she tells him, her voice clipped and tense. "And as cute as you are - with your mouth shut - I think we can both agree this needs to be annulled as soon as humanly possible, and then never spoken of again?"

Robin nods, still trying to wrap his head around it - married? He had  _married_  her? In the middle of the night in Vegas, he'd  _married_ her? He is trying, desperately trying to put together the missing pieces of the night, how they went from piss drunk and naked to  _married_ , because he's fairly certain the first two wouldn't leave them in any shape to pursue the third.

"Great. So, I will look into the particulars, but in the meantime, I think we should exchange personal info - name, phone number, and address at least, so that-"

"You don't remember my name?" he asks her curiously, watching the blush flame across her cheeks as she looks away, clears her throat. For some reason, he finds he's just a tad hurt by that. But then he thinks what it must be like to wake up next to someone you can't even call by name and discovering that you are, in fact, married to them, and decides there are more important things than a bruised ego.

"You remember mine?" she challenges, looking back to him, brows lifted.

"Yes, Regina, I do."

Her expression sours, her shoulders slumping as she mutters, "Don't be so smug."

She's reaching for her phone, parked nearby on the nightstand, as he smirks and tells her, "Mine's Robin."

"Fine. Robin, why don't we-" She has her phone in hand now, has lit up the screen, and suddenly she's gone pale. She sucks in a shuddering breath, her mouth open in a shocked O. "No," she exhales. "Oh, no, no, Regina, you didn't…"

Robin frowns and leans closer, trying to get a good look at her phone. "What is it?"

The look she gives him is one of abject horror, panic, and she turns the phone to face him. She hasn't even unlocked it yet, but the screen is chock full with notifications - well wishes, and congratulations, some in ALL CAPS and with many question marks - and at the bottom one from a Cora Mills that reads  _Will you be bringing this new husband of yours to Kathryn's wedding?_

Her hollow voice shakes as she blurts, "I told my mother."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Well. So much for annulling things quietly, he thinks, as he squints at the slew of messages and takes in her stricken expression. Regina flips the phone back toward herself and swipes through the messages again, muttering, "She told half the family.  _Half the family_." That last part is said with enough volume to have both of them wincing.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, love," he tries to mollify, reaching his hand out for hers, but she scoffs and snatches away out of his reach.

"You don't know my mother," she tells him tersely, dropping the phone to the bed and pressing her palms against her eyes. "This is a disaster."

"So, you'll be a bit embarrassed-"

"No, you don't understand," she interrupts, turning her head to glare at him again (is it wrong he finds that so attractive?), looking as miserable as he feels. "I am thirty-seven years old, childless, divorced, single for the better part of the last dozen years, and it is bad enough that every time she sees me she asks why – 'Why aren't you seeing anyone, Regina?' 'Why haven't you had a serious relationship in the last ten years, Regina?' 'Why are you making that face, Regina, it's a mother's prerogative to ask.' Now I went and told her that I  _am_  married, and that bitch, she has to know it's not real, that it's… whatever this is. And so she told  _everyone._  Because what better way to remind me that I am a single, childless, pariah than to force me to admit to our entire extended family that, no, no, I'm not married, Mother. I was for ten hours, because I got a bit drunk and slutty, but that's it."

It's quite an impressive tirade, he thinks, and he wonders how she'll feel about that bit of word vomit when she really realizes just how much she's shared with a virtual stranger. One she's technically married to, but a stranger nonetheless.

"Alright," he says carefully, swallowing against a small swell of nausea no doubt due to the throbbing behind his eyes. He needs coffee.  _They_  need coffee, he thinks. Perhaps that will help settle their nerves a bit. "How about we order up some room service, have a bit of coffee and breakfast, and then we'll... figure all this out."

"What is there to figure out?" she snaps at him, giving a few scrunchy blinks, then a handful of rapid ones. Her eyes are bothering her, he thinks. "We annul, and I...die of mortification, I suppose." She shakes her head, that permanent scowl deepening. Her hands come up to her face again, covering it, her leg shifting in such a way that her robe slips off to reveal a whole swath of leg. He has a flash of memory, that knee in particular, gripped in his hand, held up near his hips, the dim echo of throbbing bass and her wet heat around him. It's a distracting bit of recollection, one that nearly has him missing her muffled, "Oh God, I can't go to this wedding. And I am  _in_  this wedding."

Robin swallows hard and ceases his attempts to nudge at the corners of the memory, stops trying to tug it forward. Instead he focuses on her and asks, "What's your plan, then?"

Her hands fall away, down, one reaching to tug that robe back across her thigh. Probably for the best. She's delightfully sulky when she grouses, "Move to Aruba. Change my name."

"I've been to Aruba," he tells her with a flippant shrug (he regrets even that much jostling, thinks perhaps he'd be better off if he forced himself to be sick and just got it over with). "It's not all that special. Bora Bora, now  _that's_  the place to run off to."

For a moment she just looks at him with something that seems to be contempt, but he can't be entirely sure. Not with the way her hangover makes her expression a bit bleary, Either way, it's not a pleasant look, although it does nothing to dull his blooming affection for her. He can't say why, but her grouchiness is almost alluring. If she's this attractive when she's miserable, how enchanting must she have been last night, swaying against him and giggling, liquor-loosened and carefree? No wonder he married her, he thinks, foolish as it may have been.

"Quite the world traveler, aren't you?" she gripes, her words all acid.

Robin gives her a smile, reaches for her hand again and is pleased when she lets him weave their fingers. He's not sure there's any solution he can provide to her predicament (his is much less dire - even if his mates found out about this little blunder, they'd find the whole thing terribly entertaining), but he can do something for their battered bodies and pounding skulls. "Omelet or pancakes?" he asks, and she scowls.

"What?"

"I'm going to order up a bit of food, and some coffee. And perhaps a gallon of aspirin." She cracks a smile at that, if a miserable one. Just a curve of one side of her mouth, but it's enough to make him feel a little lick of triumph. "So, omelet or pancakes?"

She frowns, asks if she can see the menu, and Robin retrieves it from the bedside table before excusing himself to the loo, giving her a few minutes of solitude to stew in her distress.

**.::.**

Regina squints to focus at the items on the room service menu, her eyes like sandpaper. Now that she's a bit more awake and alert, she's become painfully aware of the fact that she slept in her contacts, and they feel like they've been glued directly to her corneas. What she'd give to pop them out for a while, switch to her glasses for the rest of the day. But said glasses are back in her hotel room, and she doesn't have saline or a case, and she'd managed to tear a lens just yesterday morning - this spare set is the last she has with her.

Without them, the whole world is fuzzy-edged and headache-inducing, so she'll have to deal with the discomfort for a few hours longer.

Nothing looks appetizing.

Maybe fruit, but that's not what she needs, she knows that much. Starch and grease, those are the famed post-booze remedies, right? As if she hasn't downed enough extra calories this weekend.

"Have you made your decision?" he asks from the bathroom door, startling her, his words muffled around his toothbrush and mouthful of froth. Lucky bastard.

She drops the menu with a sigh of disgust, and says, "Ham and cheddar omelet, side of fresh fruit, water, and coffee."

"Take a water from the minibar," he encourages, and she raises her brows at his retreating back, listening as he spits and runs the tap, the bathroom door wide open.

"A six dollar water?" she questions, raising her voice enough to carry into the other room. God, even her own voice makes her head pulse. Maybe they should just go back to bed. Crawl in, burrow under the covers, and pretend none of this ever happened.

He pads back into the room and shrugs. "Or drink from the tap if you'd rather, either way I don't mind. I'd imagine an annulment is going to run us a fair bit more than six dollars - I'll consider it part of the costs of marriage."

One dark eyebrow arches, her mouth twitching into a little smile despite how miserable she feels. "A minibar water is part of the price of divorce?"

"Annulment," he corrects. "Not divorce. And I said marriage - happy wife, happy life, isn't that the saying?"

Regina laughs. Nearly snorts with it, but manages more of a scoff, shaking her head. "Nobody believes that."

"I did," he reasons. "I was married before, too, and it seemed a good philosophy."

"So she just got whatever she wanted?" Regina challenges, because either he's a doormat, or a liar. "You were completely unselfish?"

"I didn't say that."

Aha. Liar.

"I simply meant that making her happiness a priority was a cornerstone of marriage for me - as it ought to be for most people, don't you think?"

He's standing there, leaning against the bathroom doorway, in nothing but the boxers he'd pulled on as he headed for the bathroom, arms crossed over his bare, toned chest. Asking her about her philosophies on marriage. For a moment, Regina thinks maybe she's still asleep, and this is all just some ridiculous dream she will wake from (God, let this all just be some ridiculous dream she will wake from - any time now would be great).

"I don't think people should get married," she tells him bluntly. See what Mr. Blue Eyes thinks about that.

His brows lift, a bit disbelieving. "Ever?"

Regina shakes her head. "Ever. I don't believe in marriage."

"You don't believe in it?" he asks her, like she's completely nuts. "What, like Santa or the Easter Bunny?"

Regina scowls, but doesn't drop her gaze. Regina Mills doesn't back down. And certainly not on this - she has earned her opinion on marriage, that's for damn sure. Has the scars and padded bank account to prove it.

So she explains what his idealistic brain clearly has yet to understand: "Marriage is a selfish act. Hitching yourself to somebody for life because it benefits you-"

"That's not why."

"Yes, it is."

"That can't really be what you think." He leaves that doorjamb now, heads for the bed and sits next to her as he says, "That all marriages are entered into for selfish purposes? What about love?"

She thinks of Daniel, and feels the ache, the burn of losing him, acutely. As always, she pushes back at it, shoves it down, and continues making her point.

"People don't get married because they find themselves in the middle of some true love fairy tale," she informs him. "They do it because it suits them, because it is advantageous, because it serves some purpose."

"Love," he argues again, and what an idiot. How did she end up married to such a sentimental fool? (There's a part of her, deep down, that wonders if she'd married him  _because_  he was such a sentimental fool. Because he clearly had found some way to hold on to the illusions of love that had shattered around her, despite his own marriage coming to some sort of inevitably tragic - or maybe terribly mundane? - end.)

"Rarely."

He shakes his head and peers at her again. Like she's a puzzle he cannot figure out how to start, much less finish. "Do you honestly think people rarely marry for love?"

"I think…" She glances down then, because, well, no. She doesn't think that. She does, but she doesn't. She's seen love, she's felt it. She wanted it to mean a ring on her finger, and two-point-five kids, and a dog, and a home in a nice neighborhood. But she's come to realize over the years that what she wanted with Daniel was about love, not about marriage. Marriage is the issue -  _marriage_ is the problem. Marriage is a crock of shit. "I think love and marriage are separate things. Love exists - I know that, I've had it. But marriage…" She thinks of Leo, of that big house, and all those bad choices, all the things she couldn't see until it was too late. "Marriage you do because you want something."

"You're wrong," he tells her simply, softly, and with far too much sympathy for someone who knows nothing about her or her life. She doesn't want his pity, certainly doesn't want it when he's basing it on her belief that marriage is a sham - which it  _is_ , even if he is too dumb to see that.

She tilts her chin up, looks him in the eyes, and says, "Prove it."

And then she blinks, something scratching at the edge of her mind. Blurry lights in her periphery, water, maybe a fountain. The faint smell of chlorine, his cologne, and tequila. His face up close to hers, and her back against the wall. They've had this conversation before, she thinks. Last night. She doesn't remember the particulars, but she remembers him, all she could see, his warm hands on her hips, his smile. And  _Prove it_. Oh, God. Oh God, she didn't. Oh, this cannot be how they ended up married - because they felt they had something to prove? Because  _she_  wanted him to prove her wrong?

She pokes at the border of her memory, but it's like prodding a sore tooth with her tongue. Every attempt to nudge it further just makes her head hurt more. And her head already hurts an awful lot. When are they going to order that food?

"If you don't believe in marriage, why are you going to be in a wedding?" he asks, drawing her attention back from what she desperately hopes is a false memory, because if this is  _her_  fault, that just makes the whole thing even worse. No wonder she'd called Mother. She is such an idiot.

"Because Kathryn asked, and she's my cousin," she tells him, before twisting her mouth into an expression of distaste, looking away and adding, "If she wants to throw her life away, that's her business."

"Who'd have thought you'd beat her to the altar."

Her gaze flicks back to his, finds his blue eyes teasing, if a bit bloodshot. For a second, she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, because yes, who'd have thought, and Kathryn is going to be livid, and  _oh God, she is married again_.

And because she doesn't know what to do, she simply asks, "When are we ordering that food?"

**.::.**

He calls in their order, and watches as she lays herself gingerly across the mattress again, pressing her fingertips to her eyes while he relays their breakfast desires to someone with very little respect for the tender ears of the hungover. Regina scrunches her brows, her eyes, blinks and blinks, and huffs in annoyance.

Contacts, he realizes. Marian had worn them, too, and he'd seen her do just this on the nights she'd stayed up so late reading that she'd nodded off with them still in place. Woken with eyes dry and irritated.

She tugs the robe tighter around herself, cinches it up toward her collar with one hand, and he wonders where the rest of her clothes are. He'd found his boxers near the bed, at least, but they seem to be the only clothing that made it that far. They should rectify that – he should be more of a gentleman to this woman who's woken up naked in a strange place.

"They said twenty minutes," he tells her, settling the hotel phone back into its cradle. She grunts, rolls her face toward him.

"So, what now?"

"I thought perhaps we'd find you something to wear - you're welcome to stay in the robe if you're comfortable, but you don't seem to be…"

She nods, and sits slowly, muttering, "I'm pretty sure I didn't show up here naked, so… there has to be a dress somewhere."

"My money's on the other room, and coincidentally, that's also where you can find that water you were after."

She shakes her head, but stops abruptly, a ghost of a wince flickering across her face. "I'm fine with the tap. Save your money."

Not bloody likely, he thinks. There's a part of him that feels a bit of guilt over this whole mess – not that it's necessarily his fault, but he's an honorable man, he likes to think he'd be wiser than marrying a stranger in the dead of a drunken night. And it's clearly causing her life considerably more upheaval than his own. A bit of overpriced water isn't a bother for him, and it's not as though he's in the poorhouse.

Still, he says nothing, just stands and holds out a hand to help her do the same. She ignores it, and walks past him into the front room.

It's positively strewn with clothing, a line from door to door made up of shoes and knickers, and his shirt and vest, and there, right near the door, that dress of hers. A short, black number, with glittery bits of red. He remembers it had been snug, hadn't left a whole lot to the imagination. Remembers, for some reason, the way she'd tugged at that bottom hem time and again during the earlier parts of the evening, trying in vain to subtly urge it closer to her knees. Or at least mid-thigh.

She's cringing at it now, muttering, "Well I guess this answers the did-we-or-didn't-we question - not that there was much of one, considering how we woke up."

"We definitely did," he tells her, evenly, hoping she won't read any sort of unintended smugness into the words. And then he adds, since it's the truth, "More than once, I think."

"Oh," she says tartly. "Lovely." She turns to him then, and he can't tell if her expression is anger at him, herself, or the whole situation. "Was it good?"

"Honestly, I don't remember much," he tells her, hoping the fact that they're both a little foggy will extinguish some of her yo-yoing ire. "But what I do remember… I'm fairly certain we weren't married, and it wasn't here."

"Great," she mutters, turning back to the trail of clothes and squatting with a grunt, rising with her dress clutched in her fingers and her face scrunched in discomfort. He winces sympathetically - you couldn't make him bend over for the world right now. He knows the sort of sharp, lancing pain it would send stabbing between his ears. She keeps her eyes shut, breathes in, breathes out.

Robin takes the moment to close the distance between himself and the minibar, grabbing a water (he turns the cap on it before she can spy it and protest - he owns it now) and a few Advil packets, offering them to her with a soft, "Here."

Her eyes crack open, and her frown deepens. She glares at him but doesn't say anything, doesn't reach for the bottle.

"Don't be stubborn," he gripes. "It's already open, so one of us is going to have to finish it. Your head hurts."

"Yours doesn't?" she asks, reaching over and snatching the pills from him, ripping them open and popping them into her mouth grabbing the bottle and taking a deep swig. Then another, one more, one more.

"I'm being chivalrous," he tells her. "Besides that's hardly the last Advil in the world."

Regina makes a face - shifts her brows, nearly an eye roll, her cheeks momentarily chipmunked by a particularly large gulp of water. Then she swallows and sighs, caps the bottle and hands it back to him with a murmur of thanks.

"Anything for my new bride," he tells her, can't help himself - and he ought to learn to, because all it does is earn him another of her glares. And then she looks away from him, shifts that glare elsewhere, to the dress still clutched in her hand, shaking it out and holding it up for inspection. It's a bit wrinkled, but otherwise fine. Still, she sighs, looking at it with a mixture of apprehension and resignation. "Something the matter with it?"

She flips it around, presses it to her front, and drawls, "If this doesn't scream walk of shame, I don't know what does. Especially once you add the stiletto pumps and the bedhead."

She's not wrong, there. And he doesn't remember exactly where she'd said she was staying (doesn't remember if she told him at all), but his hotel is down the far end of the strip. Wherever she's going, she'll either have to hoof it through throngs of tourists, or take a cab. Either way, he can't imagine she'll be comfortable, and he finds he wants her comfortable. He doesn't take this whole marriage thing seriously, not really, but she's so damned cynical about the whole thing, he wonders if maybe for the few hours they're attached he can show her what it's like to be cared for.

So he offers, "If you want, I can go down and get you something else. I'm sure there's something bearable in the gift shop, and if not, there's shops not too far. It'll take me maybe half an hour or so. I'll have to ask you not to eat my breakfast along with yours."

He smirks to let her know he's kidding, but her expression has gone suddenly soft, her grip on the dress loosening somewhat.

"You'd do that?" she asks, as if she's genuinely touched. Oh yes, he's going to spend the next half a day treating her like a bloody queen if it will call that sort of reaction out of her.

"Seems the least I can do for my wife."

She scoffs, and he has to bite back a smile. There she is. "You're really enjoying this aren't you?"

"I told you my views on marriage. And right now, we're quite married. So, your happiness is my priority."

She glares for a moment more, then mutters, "I'd be happy if you talked a little less."

He does smile then.

"Why don't I go see what I can find? There's still a bit of time before the food arrives. You can take a shower, get cleaned up. You'll feel better. And I'll be back soon with something a bit more appropriate for the daytime."

But even that - even giving her a bit of space, and time, and quiet doesn't seem to appease her. It just narrows her eyes, tilts her head.

"You're just going to leave me here?" she questions. "With all your things? I'm practically a stranger, how do you know I'm not going to shimmy into that dress, steal anything worth a few bucks and disappear?"

"If you did, you wouldn't get your annulment," he reasons. "And I know you don't want to be stuck with me forever, do you? I have horrible credit."

She presses her lips together to suppress what he's sure is another smile, and then, once she's reined herself back into her usual prickly persona, sighs, "Of course you do." And then, "Fine. Go. But you might want to put some pants on first."

**.::.**

The shower helps.

Admittedly, the Advil probably has something to do with it, but after ten minutes under the steamy spray and judicious use of his toiletries, she feels a bit more human. That low grade panic is still there, rearing with a hot surge of adrenaline and oily nausea every time she thinks about the fact that she is  _married_ ,  _again_  (oh God, oh God), and still has to come up with some way to explain the whole thing to Mother and the rest of the godforsaken family without losing every last shred of her dignity. But that is a task for another day - right now, she tells herself to focus on the simple things, like shampooing her hair and washing her face, hoping Robin doesn't bring back something completely hideous from the gift shop, and, oh yes, the simple matter of how to go about their annulment.

She's out of the shower by the time the food arrives, back in her robe, her face scrubbed clean and hair twisted into a braid that is made mostly useless by her lack of a hair tie to hold it. It's loose, and only getting looser, but it's something anyway. Something to keep her curls in line until she can get her hands on a good hair dryer and proper brush.

He's still gone - Robin - and if there's one thing she hates to eat cold, it's eggs, so she starts without him, and only feels a little bit bad about it. She's not beholden to him in any way, after all, misguided nuptials or not. But he  _is_  spending the time it takes for his breakfast to go lukewarm hunting down clothing for her, so… a little bit of guilt. Just a smidge.

Not enough to keep her from taking a first tentative bite of eggs, unsure of her shaky stomach, and then another, one more, more, as she realizes that food is  _exactly_  what she needs. Food, and, God, yes, coffee. The coffee isn't even that good, but it's heaven. Hot and bitter and wonderful.

She's already on her second cup, half of her omelet down the hatch, when she hears the beep of his keycard in the lock, and the click of the door as it opens.

Robin walks in, clutching plastic shopping bags, and when he sees her, he smiles.

"Still here, I see."

"The bad credit scared me into staying," she teases back, and she has to admit, she likes his sass. Likes that he doesn't seem put off by hers. "Who would want to marry into that?"

"You already did," he points out, and she rolls her eyes, but realizes she's smiling despite her ire.

"And, as you pointed out, if I leave, I always will be." She nods toward the bags and asks, "What did you find?" before he can retort.

He lifts them slightly, telling her, "A pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and a dress in case that's more your style. I figure you must have arrived here with knickers, so I didn't bother looking for any underthings. I did get some flip-flops, so you don't break your ankles in those heels."

"I managed just fine last night," she points out, and he grins, almost wolfishly.

"That I recall." He reaches into one bag and retrieves something, holding it out for her. Regina blinks, surprised. It's saline. "And this." He got her contact solution. How did he even  _know_  to get her contact solution? Did she tell him she wore glasses the night before? And if she did, how would he remember that and not, y'know, fucking her silly in the other room? (And she knows they did that last part. There's a telltale tenderness that she became aware of only as she swiped soapy fingers across her nether regions in the shower – whatever they did, they did it  _well._ )

She reaches over and takes the box gingerly - precious cargo at the moment, her eyes suddenly even more irritated at just the proximity of relief. "How did you know?"

"My wife used to fall asleep with her contacts in. I know the signs. Your eyes have been bothering you all morning."

"Thank you," she tells him sincerely, still a bit bewildered at his thoughtfulness. Touched in a way that seems disproportionate to his actions, but… he'd noticed. He'd noticed her discomfort, and he'd gotten her contact solution. Who does that? "I don't suppose you managed to find-"

He pulls a two-pack of lens cases out of the bag, and holds them out for her, his smile oh-so-self-satisfied. She'll give him this one; he's earned the smugness. "Go change," he urges, and she nods, rises from her seat. The rest of her breakfast can wait.

As she goes, she grabs the cases from him, takes the bags, and mutters, "If you got hair ties, I might consider skipping the annulment."

His laughing "Sorry to disappoint" follows her into the bedroom.

She heads for the bathroom first, unwilling to wait another second before peeling her contacts off her sticky eyeballs. She doesn't even care that the lack of them has everything going fuzzy. She'll put them back in before she leaves here, she just needs a little while for her corneas to get used to fresh air again. She breathes a sigh of relief, depositing them in the case, screwing the caps back on as she blinks and blinks. So much better - and oh God, are those eye drops in the bottom of the bag?

They are.

She could cry. She could just cry with relief.

She tears open the packaging and lubes up her eyeballs. God, he's wonderful. She could just kiss him. It's amazing the difference something so simple can make, but just getting rid of that little bit of discomfort has her feeling considerably better about life.

In fact, she's feeling so much better that she decides not to gripe about what he bought for her to wear. The clothes are… fine. Okay. Touristy, gift-shop crap that she wouldn't ordinarily be caught dead in, but at least she'll look more like she lost her luggage than her virtue. She says a small prayer of thanks that they're not in terribly hideous colors. Okay, the shorts are pink with a little rhinestone VIVA LAS VEGAS on the hip, and that's not ideal, but the t-shirt is blue. She can live with blue - and it's even dark blue, which is good, because her bra is black. She shrugs out of her robe, slips into the clothes - he was wrong about the underwear, she has no idea where her thong ended up. It wasn't in the trail of clothing she collected and threw on the bed before her shower earlier. But if she has to go commando, thank God it's in shorts and not that little black dress. (They're a little on the loose side, but there's a drawstring, so she cinches it tight and knots it.)

When she emerges from the bedroom, he's nearly finished his breakfast. He looks up at her, chews quickly so he can swallow and ask, "Better?"

"Much."

She joins him at the little room service table, her omelet mostly cold now, the cheese congealed. She switches to her fruit, picks at honeydew and under-ripe strawberries.

"How are the eyes?"

"Blurry," she admits. "I'm not blind without the contacts, but… let's just say, I'll have a brand new headache to compete with the first one before too long."

"Then I suppose we should be making an effort to get you on your way home," he suggests between bites, and Regina finds herself frowning. Home - or rather, her hotel - sounds good. Amazing. A clean bed to collapse onto for a while, and her own clothes, her round brush and her moisturizer and her glasses. But back to the hotel means back to reality, and she's not sure she's ready for that quite yet. There's something about this place that feels… safe.

It shouldn't, should it? This stranger's room? This man, Robin, whom she doesn't even know but somehow trusts? And for what reason? Because he's been kind to her? Because he brought her clean clothes and contact solution? Snap out of it, Regina. He's not some white knight, he's a one-night stand gone horribly, comically awry.

He's right. She should get going now. But she has all these strawberries to finish…

**.::.**

He's expecting her to beat a hasty retreat, but instead she just looks at him for a few minutes. Studying him, making a decision of some kind. And then she gives a little nod and forks up a strawberry, making no move to go just yet. Fine by him, he finds he rather enjoys her company. Rather enjoys seeing her all dressed down, too, her hair damp and twisted into a weak braid against one shoulder, dark waves of it popping out in places (it had been mostly straight last night, curling at her temples by this morning). Her face bare of even a drop of makeup. It makes her look younger - he might even go so far as to say fresh-faced, if it weren't for the dark circles and the slight pallor of her hangover that hasn't quite abated yet.

It's a moment before she speaks again, and when she does it's to ask, "Where are we, anyway?"

He's struck once again by how jarring this must be for her - not even knowing where she is, much less remembering how she got there. He supposes she's been remarkably cool-headed, considering.

"The Delano," he tells her, reaching for the pot to refill his coffee. "It's part of Mandalay Bay. But cheaper. The men thought proximity to all the pools would increase the chances of picking someone up."

One of those dark eyebrows lifts, arches derisively. "So this was the goal, then? Hooking up in Vegas?"

He realizes just how his comment must have sounded, and winces internally, trying to make light of it all by reasoning, "Well, I imagine they envisioned less of a lifetime commitment, but yes. I've not been having enough fun in my life, they said. I don't think this was quite the fun they had in mind, though."

Her eyes light up just a little, her nose crinkling, and then she smirks and volleys back, "Just tell them you really wanted to give it your all."

He laughs at that, shaking his head, teeth catching against his lower lip as he watches her own smile bloom, a warm, genuine chuckle bubbling up from her throat. God, she really is a picture, isn't she?

They stay that way for a moment, one that hovers between them like a held breath, a moment of connection, of pleasant tension.

And then the not-so-dulcet tones of "All About That Bass" kick up from the bedroom and Regina startles, looking momentarily embarrassed before murmuring something about needing to get that and rushing into the other room. Robin can't help taking a moment to appreciate the rear view as she hustles away. All about that bass, indeed…

She answers, and he can't make out every word - she speaks in hushed tones, urgent, exasperated. He manages to catch  _Kathryn_  and  _You're the one who let me leave with a stranger in the first place_  and  _Please don't say anything_. But that's about it.

When she comes back a moment later, phone clutched precariously in her slack fingers, power cord trailing off it like a tail and looped loosely in her grasp, that moment of easy levity is gone. She lands on her seat with a defeated plop and looks a bit lost. Robin feels guilty all over again for this whole situation.

"Well, I've managed to piss off the bride. Not that that's a surprise."

"Tell her not to give you trouble on your wedding day," he attempts to tease, but it falls flat and she only glares at him.

"This is a mess," she tells him flatly. "This is a mess, and it's only going to get worse, and more embarrassing. It's one thing to have a failed marriage - that one ending wasn't my fault, despite the rose-colored glasses through which my mother likes to see it after so many years of me being a dateless disappointment. It's another thing entirely to get married on  _accident._  And in Vegas of all places - who does that? This isn't a sitcom. We are not fictional characters thrown together for an entertaining plot line - this is my life. This is… my mother. And I…" Her gaze has been on the bit of melon she's been gracelessly stabbing with her fork again and again, but it flicks to his now, then skitters away.

She looks… hurt. Unguarded, just for a moment, and so Robin doesn't interrupt. Doesn't offer her excuses or platitudes, or reassurance that it will all be alright. His patient silence is rewarded when she continues, "Mother is a picker. She finds something every time I see her. Something I'm not doing quite the way she'd like, something I've worn that she hates, something… something. I have spent the last few weeks wondering what it would be this time, and then… this. A silver platter of mortification for her to heap onto me, publicly. She'll drag me from table to table, and tell the oh-so-funny-you-won't-believe-what-happened story of how I got drunk in Vegas and married my one-night stand. She'll make it sound like it's something we should all just laugh off, and all the while, she'll take dig after dig at me. I know it, I just… know it."

He aches for her. Aches for the clear pain of a child so poorly used by a parent, aches for the fact that she  _won't_  be able to just laugh this off and make it into a story, when that's exactly what it will become for him. The Time When Robin Got So Drunk in Las Vegas That He Woke Up Married to A Stranger. They'd tell the story at parties, and smack him on the back, and he'd laugh and give them the "alright, alright, enough already," and then he'd crack open another beer and move on with his night.

But she won't. This is a terrible blunder to her, a dirty secret spilled into a toxic family, and he wishes more than anything he could just fix it for her. Undo it. He doesn't even know this woman, but more than anything he wants to protect her heart from this pain he's had a hand in causing. If only he knew how.

"What can I do?" he asks, and she looks at him again, seems almost surprised to see him sitting there, as if she'd forgotten him in her moment of confession. Or maybe she's just caught off guard by the offer to help.

She shakes her head, and it's the final nail in the coffin for her hair – it drags against her shoulder and untwists, her hand lifting immediately to weave it back together. He wishes he'd known to get her hair ties. "Unless you can find some way to make an accidental twenty-four hour marriage less embarrassing…"

He's not sure why he says it. Call it a moment of madness, or the bewitching effect of her dark curls, her sulky lower lip. Her… everything he knows so far. He's not sure why he says it, but he does:

"I suppose we could stay married."

**.::.**

Regina nearly chokes on her coffee, her eyes popping wide, as she stutters a startled, "Excuse me?"

He's lost his ever-loving mind. He's a crazy person. She's married to a crazy person. Again.

For a moment he flounders, like even he is surprised by his words (and thank God for that), but then he seems to rally.

"You said yourself that people only marry for selfish reasons," he points out, pointing his fork in her direction for a moment as he adds, "Because they need something. You need an excuse for having gotten married, a way to save face with your family - why not stay married? No excuse necessary."

Nope. He's crazy. Absolutely batshit crazy. She should have left ten minutes ago.

"Are you insane?" she questions severely. "You want to  _stay married_? What happened to marriage is all about love and 'happy wife, happy life,' and all that garbage?"

He settles back in his seat, his confidence clearly growing. That can't be a good thing.

"Well, obviously one of us is wrong. Wouldn't you like to find out who?" he challenges, and it's stupid, because she  _knows_  who. It's him. She is right, and he is crazy. A moralizing sap who has gone absolutely round the bend if he thinks she'll rise to this kind of bait.

"I know who. I've been married-"

"So have I."

"Not like this." And she has. Oh, she has, she has done this, and it ended terribly. Why would she ever want to do it again?

"No, not like this," he concedes. "But perhaps we can both learn a little something from each other."

Like it's some kind of goddamn social experiment, and not  _marriage_. Jesus Christ.

"You want to make a lifetime commitment–"

"Not lifetime," he interrupts, shaking his head.  _What_  the hell is he talking about? By definition marriage is a permanent thing. "We can divorce, once you've spent a suitable amount of time telling your family how the bloom's fallen off the rose. Another failed marriage, perhaps, but at least one that won't give your mother more ammo."

"Oh, sure it will. A secret marriage to some fling?"

"So it won't be a fling." He leans forward, sets his fork aside, like this idea is starting to sound better and better to him. "We can say it's more than that, we can tell them anything you want. And you can tell your mother to keep her belittling comments to her damn self. If marriage is meaningless, then why not?"

He has her on that last one. If it's meaningless and self-serving - which it is - why shouldn't she use it to serve herself? The sane part of her tells her that she knows exactly why, but there's another part, the part who has felt comfortable in this room for most of the morning, that can sort of see his point.

Still, she scoffs at him.

"So we'd… what?" she challenges, keeping her tone derisive. "Tell people we've been secretly dating for months? Because even if we claim love at first sight, it's still a humiliating and ill-advised Vegas wedding."

"Sure," he shrugs. "We'll come up with some great story that makes me look incredibly dashing and romantic."

She rolls her eyes. Is he really flirting with her? Now?

"And you think we could pull that off? Convince everyone that I've spent the last however many months lying to them about my relationship status?"

Could she?

No. Why is she even asking that? Why is she even considering the question?

"Do you have a lot of family that lives near to you?"

Regina shifts in her chair, and shakes her head. She doesn't, not really. Just...

"I have a half-sister, but she's not close with anyone else in the family." Zelena wouldn't breathe a word – she owes Regina. Regina doesn't like to use her trump card, doesn't even like to consider it that, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and a fake marriage, well… that's pretty damn desperate. "And there's Kathryn, but she's well aware of how we met."

Robin frowns at that, his brow knitting as he questions, "I thought Kathryn lived in California."

Shit.

Regina swallows, creases the napkin in front of her daintily and admits what she'd boldly lied about the night before.

"I… live in California."

His brows lift.

"You said you lived in Maine."

"I lied," she admits, unapologetically. And why shouldn't she have lied? He was a stranger, in a bar, in  _Las Vegas_  of all places. "You told me you lived in Pasadena, and what if you turned out to be a crazy person? I didn't want you to think you could just drive across town and… pursue something with me."

His look of dawning comprehension is all too pleased. Crap. Why did she tell that to the man who is asking to  _stay married_  to her?

"You live in California," he deduces. How very clever of him

But the jig is up now, so she sighs and admits, "Santa Monica."

"Well, even better. An easy solution. Nobody who matters will ever know the difference, and we wouldn't even have to live together. We can just decide whose place to send the mail to, and meet once a week for dinner and our various junk mail and catalogs."

Well, now there's a thought. If she doesn't have to see his smug, gorgeous face every day, doesn't have to wake up to morning breath and groping hands and sweat… Oh God, is she really thinking about this?

"Stay in a marriage of convenience for half a year," he offers. "You can trot me out to all the requisite family gatherings. Save a bit of face. I promise to play nice with the relatives."

A whole six months of her mother not being able to ask why she's still single. Not being able to subtly suggest she should have stayed with Leopold, even after everything. Half a year of having a permanent plus-one. Of never having to wonder who to bring to someone's wedding, or baptism, or bar mitzvah. Of not having to wonder who to talk into trying out the latest must-dine restaurant. And if he doesn't even want to live with her, if she can still live her life, sleep in her own bed at night, live by her own schedule…

No.

She can't really be considering this.

Can she?

Oh God, she is. She is considering this.

She cannot believe it, but she is actually considering this.

**.::.**

He cannot believe it, but she is actually considering this.

Robin can tell from the knit of her brow, the pinch of her scowl. It's not ornery the way it has been, it's… thoughtful. She takes a deep breath and looks at him. Looks at him.

He's gone absolutely round the bend. Suggesting this. But now that he has, it seems.. right in a way. Mad, absolutely, but maybe mad is what he needs. Maybe he needs to shake up the snowglobe a bit, give his life something new and unexpected.

"Would you be expecting sex?"

Her question catches him off guard, and he's not entirely sure how to answer. It feels like a trap. A test.

Does she want him to say yes, or to say no?

And does it really matter what she hopes he'll say? he wonders. He ought to be honest with her – she'll likely know if he's not, anyway. They'd woken up nude together, it's hardly a stretch to think that he might want to do it again. And he does, quite a lot.

So he jerks his shoulder, and tells her true: "If we're being honest, I wouldn't mind it - simply because you're an incredibly beautiful woman, and we're clearly attracted to each other if last night is any indication. I have to admit I feel a bit cheated that I can't remember more than patches of what we did." Honesty is the best policy, right? But her eyes have narrowed, gone unreadable, and he remembers she'd spoken of expectation, not want. What he would expect of her as part of this little exchange. So he makes sure to reassure her, "But I'd never force the issue, if it wasn't something you wanted."

Her chuckle in response is hollow, mirthless.

"I've heard that before."

He's failed the test.

He's sure of it, he must have. Someone in the past had failed it first, and now he's being graded on a very steep curve. One he's just tumbled headlong down. He doesn't want her to think he's a lech, or a pusher, doesn't want her to think he'd be anything but kind to her if she agreed to this little arrangement. He reaches out for her across the table, past mostly empty plates and half-drained coffee cups, settling his hand over hers as it fiddles with the end of her fork.

He says her name, "Regina," then waits until she's meeting his gaze directly. Then he makes a promise, one made of sound mind, one they'll both remember, unlike the ones they'd made sometime last night: "I vow to you: I'll never expect anything of you that you don't want to give. Your body is your own, and I would never disrespect that." Her gaze lowers to her plate, but only for a moment, lifting back up to his but looking a bit more settled. Still a mirror more than a window, but her sudden tension is… less. Perhaps he's passed muster after all. "If we do this, it's all by mutual agreement. Nobody is forced into anything, and if it turns out we absolutely despise each other, we'll call it all off."

He shouldn't be fighting for this. It's absolutely ludicrous, and goes against everything he believes about marriage. But she's unlike anyone he's met before - or at least, unlike anyone he's met in a long time. He feels a pull toward her, inexplicable, one that has these words tumbling from his lips - as ridiculous as they surely are - sounding right and sensible.

He should feel like he's making a huge mistake, but he doesn't. His heart is pounding, a heavy knock against his ribcage, but it doesn't feel like dread. It feels like… hope.

For Regina's part, she looks every bit as confused as he ought to feel. But her voice is softer, a bit more vulnerable as she questions, "You really want to stay married to me?"

"I find that I do, yes."

And not a word of it is a lie.

She shakes her head, peers at him, and asks, "Why?"

In the interest of honesty, Robin blows out a breath and confesses, "I have no bloody idea."

Perhaps not the best of responses if he's trying to garner her favor. It has her eyes heading skyward again, her hand dragging out from beneath his to cross over her chest as she leans back in her chair.

"What a wonderful basis for marriage," she drawls, dripping with her usual cynicism.

"It serves a purpose; that's all you've said marriage needs to do," he reminds.

"But  _you_  need more."

Does he? he wonders. Will this be enough for him? What is it, exactly, that he really wants from her? From all this? Is it just to get her out of a bind? It can't be. If it were just that, he wouldn't feel so strongly that it's worth bending on his very philosophy on marriage just to… what?

It hits him then, as he's sitting there watching her stare hard at him, waiting for his answer. He realizes, then, what he wants. He wants this morning to last. Wants it not to end, not until she believes that there's more to life than people who will disregard her. It's awfully presumptuous, but it's the truth.

"All I'd like," he begins to answer, "is a chance to show you that marriage doesn't have to be all about how much you can take from someone. Give me six months. Six months, and I will spend it treating you the way I think a wife ought to be treated."

He is earnest and forthright, and it has her bristling, has her straightening her spine and tightening her scowl. What has he done now?

"I'm not some pet project," she bites frostily, and damn. Damnit. Of course she saw it that way. "I won't be married out of pity."

"I never thought you were, and I don't pity you."

"Then what  _do_  you think I am?"

It doesn't take him long to come up with an answer.

"An intriguing woman that I would like to know better. One who's been given reason to be once bitten, twice shy. Who has a lot of expectations placed upon her, and doesn't want to disappoint them." Her ramrod spine relaxes at that, her lungs pulling in a deep breath of air, letting it out again. There's a flicker of vulnerability across her face again, gone in an instant, and she lifts a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. "I want to be a friend, Regina," he says, and then, because he thinks perhaps he hit a bit close to home, he jokes with her, "And maybe get a tax break."

She laughs, despite herself.

He wants to make her laugh again, as much as he can, for the next half year. If he does nothing else, he'll make her laugh. As he sits there, watching her look at him like he's crazy, but perhaps a sort of crazy she can get behind, he makes that vow with himself.

Marriage to him will be an absolute joy, he'll see to it.

**.::.**

He's looking at her like he's already in love with her. But he can't be, that's ridiculous. But then, he's pretty much proven he's ridiculous, hasn't he? With this whole thing. This whole thing that sounds… increasingly like not such a horrible idea.

She wishes more than ever she could remember more of the details of the conversations that had gotten them married in the first place. What had he said to her then? Was it this? She'd have fallen for it then (she might be falling for it now), when she was several sheets to the wind. It would have seemed like a great idea if she was liquor-soaked and horny and feeling that jagged edge of loneliness that cuts into her from time to time.

But she's sober now, and so is he. Despite all evidence to the contrary.

"You're sure you're not just… still drunk?" she asks him, just to be sure. She knows the answer, he's too hungover for drunk, but at least it would explain this wild hair of his.

"Positive," he assures her, lifting his coffee and muttering, "If I was drunk, I wouldn't still have such a bloody headache."

She'd laugh if she wasn't in the process of actually losing her mind and throwing all good sense, all decency and sanity out the window. And for what? To prove something to Mother? To prove something to  _herself_?

Childish. Stupid. Reckless.

But the way he  _looks_  at her. Nobody has looked at her quite that way since Daniel.

Could it be that after all these years she's finally ready to move on? And would it really be so different from dating? If he was asking to date her, asking to see her when they got back to California, to see where things go, would she say no? She doesn't think so - not to the guy who bought her saline solution and a change of clothes just so she wouldn't have to be one of the surely many slutty walks-of-shame in Vegas this morning. She'd have given him a chance, she thinks.

So why not? He's not even asking for forever, just… a few months. Dating for a few months - not even that, if she doesn't want it - just… the legal benefits? The companionship.

No, not that. She hates that word. After Leopold, she hates that word. She doesn't want to be anyone's  _companion_.

She wants her independence, her autonomy, her freedom.

"And we don't have to live together?" she asks, finally, breaking the silence he's so patiently let linger.

"No," he assures. "Not if you don't want. In fact, it's probably better that way - less complicated for everyone."

Better that way. Bless him. This could… this could work. A few months of marriage, a divorce that's unlikely to get messy considering it's been the plan all along. No hard feelings, no financial agreements. It's a bit late for a pre-nup anyway.

She lets herself imagine it for a moment - Mother's face when she shows up at Kathryn's wedding with this man who surely looks absolutely edible in a suit. God, she hopes he's well employed. She doesn't even know if he's employed at all.

"What do you do for a living?" she asks, because she should probably at least know  _that_  about her husband.

"I'm a curator at the Huntington Library," he responds, and oh God, he's perfect. How in the world can Mother argue with  _that?_ "You?"

"Interior design," she mutters almost absently, her brain already somewhere else, musing aloud, "If I get divorced in six months, Mother is going to tell me I didn't try hard enough to make things work."

"A year, then."

"A year?"

That's… That's a  _year_.

"Yes."

"A whole year?"

"Sure."

How can he be so flippant about this? About signing away a year of his life.

But really, what else is she going to be doing with the next year? Nothing so out of the ordinary - nothing she can't put off for a year, anyway. And it's not as though she's agreeing to a prison sentence. It's just… marriage. Just a… legal status. Just a convenient ruse. Isn't it?

"It's just a… business arrangement?" she clarifies - she wants to be sure, wants to make sure she doesn't get burned again. "We play pretend when necessary, keep our own separate lives, get to know each other a little better, and in a year, we part ways?"

He grins at her, flashes dimples that go on for days. "Well, I'd hope that after a year of knowing me, you wouldn't be scrambling to kick me out of your life. But yes, if in a year, we've tired of each other, we get a quick, quiet, amicable divorce."

Okay. Okay. This could… this could  _work._

Oh, God, what is she thinking. This can't work. This can't...

"You're nuts," she tells him, emphatically, hoping that if she says it with enough oomph, she might believe it as much as she did when this conversation started.

He shrugs, his mouth tipping into a little frown, brows rising and falling gamely. "You're probably right. But I think you're coming around to the idea."

She shouldn't say it. Shouldn't, but she does: "I might be."

That smile spreads across his face again, and it does things inside her chest. Makes her heart flutter and somersault. Uh oh.

She can tell by his smug expression that he already thinks he's won, that she's agreeing to this, and she reaches for her coffee to swallow down the little bubble of riotous emotion that is rising in her chest just as he opens his mouth to speak again.

"Then I've just one more question for you: do you have anything against men with children?"


	3. Chapter 3

Perhaps he should have led with that one, because it's certainly thrown her (but then, why wouldn't it?). Regina's brows are practically to her hairline, her dark eyes wide. And then they squint a little, her face twisting into its usual expression of ire and he wonders what it would be like to see her happy for a solid hour. Probably magical.

"You have a  _child_?" She questions, disbelieving and a bit irate.

"I do," he confirms, and yes, he definitely should have told her sooner because that disbelief is fading, melting away to leave nothing but anger behind. "A son. Roland. He's four."

"And you didn't think that was important to bring up  _before_  you asked me to stay married to you?"

"I was getting around to it," he reasons, and he was, truly, he would have brought it up earlier when he thought the conversation was turning toward who would be moving if they stuck to this plan. "And then I found out you lived half an hour away. It changed the necessity of the issue a bit."

Her jaw drops, brow furrowing. "He's your son; you don't think he's a necessity?"

"Hey, now," he protests, because that is entirely untrue and he won't abide a word of it. Not one single bloody word even if he walked himself straight into this little spat. "My son is  _everything_  to me. That boy is my whole world."

"Then how can you do this? You don't think this will be incredibly confusing? Bringing a step mother into his life and then taking her away?"

Her first thought is for Roland, what a bloody marvel she is. Not for herself, or how it would change her, but  _what about the child?_  He feels a rush of affection for her, sudden and unbidden. If he's not careful, Robin's going to get attached.

But clearly he's thrown her here, and she does have a point, so he gentles his tone a bit to reassure her, "We're not even going to live together. You'll be... Daddy's girlfriend, if even that."

They'll have to come up with something suitable to tell Roland. Something that won't be too confusing, something that won't end in heartbreak for his boy once a year passes. He watches her reach for her coffee cup with a shake of her head (her braid is unweaving again, and he finds himself wanting to comb his fingers through all those dark waves) and he thinks that if she can just tamp down her biting temper, Roland will be absolutely enchanted by her.

Maybe this isn't the greatest of ideas after all...

"But we  _were_  going to live together when you came up with this ridiculous idea, weren't we?"

She has him there.

"Admittedly, I was sort of flying by the seat of my pants there for the early bit of that conversation," he confesses, because, well, he had been. Staying married had been a wild hair, one with far-reaching consequences – more of them the longer he thinks on it, to be honest, but for some reason that's not a deterrent for him. His brain is already buzzing with all the ways they can work around the complications.

Regina seems less convinced.

She's scowling at him, is always scowling at him, and telling him now, "You're insane. I can't stay married to you, you're a crazy person." And then, "I suppose I should have known that, considering you just asked me to  _stay married to you_. Who does that?" She shifts in her chair, huffing out a breath and looking uncomfortable, bothered. Her coffee is back on the table now, but her fingers still flutter restlessly against the handle of her cup. For the first time, she looks like she might want to flee, and Robin feels a little pang of guilt for handling this all so poorly. For putting her on the spot in the first place.

So he reaches for her, offering his hand palm-up on the table. She doesn't take it – no surprise there – but he tells her anyway, "Alright, I'm sorry. I should have told you about Roland straight off."

"Yes. You should have."

Robin draws his hand back – her refusal in that regard has been perfectly clear – and tries to shift the conversation to more neutral ground. Give her a minute to cool off.

"We still need to exchange information," he reminds her. "Whether we agree to annul or stay married, we'll need to be in touch."

She frowns a little, mutters, "Right," and then, "So… hotel information, address, phone number…?"

"Sounds about right," he tells her, rising and heading for the desk and its little notepad and pen. "I'd imagine it might be easier to write than to type for you at the moment?"

"I can see," she grouses.

"I never said otherwise," he responds mildly. There's a paper on the desk, face down, one he doesn't recall being there earlier. He wonders for a moment if it's the room service bill or something, if she'd set it there before he returned. But no, there's watermarking, and when he flips it, he realizes it is much more than a breakfast bill.

It's their marriage certificate.

"Well, if the rings didn't make it official enough, this certainly does," he tells her, turning and holding it out in her direction.

She reaches to take the paper from his hand, then draws it in close, squinting rather endearingly. So much for being able to see. Her forehead scrunches and she shifts the paper closer and further away, struggling to bring it into focus.

"Just how blind are you?" he asks good-naturedly, and she flicks her gaze away from the paper and up to his with an affronted glare.

"The letters are small," she excuses, and they are, he supposes, but they're not  _that_  small. He's taking his seat again as she looks back to the page and mutters, "Blind enough to think you're cute."

Oh, he likes her. He really does. He's going to enjoy being married to this one for a while – if he can only convince her the idea isn't completely mad.

"Nice try," he grins. "Might have been more cutting if there wasn't a compliment in there."

She sighs, gives him a wearily annoyed, "Shut up," and then her eyes pop wide with something he thinks looks like horror. "Oh, God. Did I take your...?" She pulls the paper close again, squinting harder, and then, "I took your name."

"What?"

She looks back up and nearly throws the damn paper at him, enunciating clearly and firmly. " _I took your name._ "

He takes a closer look, and sure enough, there she is. The form clearly designating her newly married self as  _Regina Mills-Locksley_.

"Nonsense – you hyphenated."

"I still took your name!" she nearly shouts at him, getting all worked up again for the umpteenth time this morning. "I don't even know you! And I am sure as hell not your property, I am not some 1950s housewife who is going to spend the rest of her life as 'the missus,' absorbed into  _your_  identity and completely losing my own just so you can have an attractive woman on your arm, or someone to pop out babies–Why are you laughing?"

He shouldn't be, he knows that, but she's gone a bit off the deep end all of a sudden, and there's a vein popping dangerously in her forehead. The whole thing – the leap from a year spent in a marriage of convenience to her assumption that one little change to her moniker will have her becoming some sort of Stepford wife had sent him into a low wave of snickering.

But he manages to quell it, telling her, "You're quite cute when you're all incensed. And I think you're overreacting – I don't expect any of that from you, and you know it. You're your own woman, Mrs. Mills-Locksley."

"Do  _not_  say it like that," she tells him in a tone that brooks no argument. And then she's reaching for the paper and peering hard at it again, her face a mess of regret. "We have to get this annulled. It's a legal document!"

It is, but...

"Go with it," he shrugs.

She lowers the paper her hand hitting the edge of the room service table with a dull thunk.

"Go with it?" she questions, as if he's absolutely daft.

He probably is. What has gotten into him this morning?

Still, he says simply, "Yes. Go with it."

She looks him over with affronted bewilderment for a moment and then snips, "Well, aren't you just a free bird."

"You can change it back for free during our inevitable divorce," he reminds. "I don't think a year as Regina Mills-Locksley will kill you."

"The name change paperwork is a nightmare," she argues. "Social security, and my driver's license, all my credit cards… I've already had to do all of this twice, I really don't relish the idea of doing it a third and fourth time. Plus, there's my career to think of."

"Leave it Mills for work – it's a lovely name, by the way. Regina Mills."

"Yes, it is, and I'd like to keep it." She's still all sass and sneer, but he thinks he can see a hint of real panic underneath, and he wonders if his flippant regard for the whole thing isn't making all of that worse. He doesn't want her to feel he's poking fun at her, especially not over something as fundamental as a change to her very name.

He considers offering to pay to change it back, if it really perturbs her so much, but she hasn't truly agreed to keep up this whole charade yet, so instead he offers her a bit of grace. A relief of pressure.

"This isn't something that has to be decided today," he tells her, giving her a smile that he hopes has just enough kindness and humility to be comforting. "Spend the rest of the weekend with me, and then decide if I'm tolerable enough to last a year."

She eyes him skeptically, but some of her ire is leaking out, away. Still, she purses her lips and then bites, "I'm here with people."

"Brilliant. Introduce me. They all know anyway, right?"

"I can't just–" she cuts off, shaking her head, her eyes rolling skyward. "I'm here for a bachelorette party, I can't just blow that off to hang out with the guy I accidentally married. And aren't you here with people, too?"

He is, and he supposes he should check in. He's not sure if he's flattered or offended that not a one of his mates has checked to make sure he's still alive and breathing this morning, but then, he hasn't looked in on them either, has he? And he has no idea how they left the night off.

"I am," he says, and then, "Let us take you to dinner – all of you. An apology, of sorts. My friends, and yours. Our treat. We can have a laugh over this whole thing, and I can get to know you better when you're not wearing borrowed clothes and enjoying the sight of me through a lovely soft-focus."

"It's more of a mild gaussian blur," she admits, and he wonders what it would be like to see the world through her eyes. Or not see it, as the case may be. "Lucky for you."

"I fared just fine with your contacts in," he reminds, holding up his left hand and waggling his fingers at her, the light glinting off the gold band there. Regina rolls her eyes again, and he's tempted to tease that they'll get stuck that way, but he doesn't want to push his luck. So instead, he points out, "You still haven't answered my question."

"What question?"

"How do you feel about men with kids?" he repeats, earnestly this time, and softly. He really does want to know if his child would be a dealbreaker for her, should they go through with this mad plan, and waiting for her distress to abate could have this conversation in the next decade.

"I feel like they should tell the damn truth from the get-go," she snarks at him, and Robin exhales heavily, sitting back in his chair and reaching for his coffee to busy his hands.

" _I apologize_ ," he tells her sincerely and firmly. "I should have been more upfront. Can I rephrase?" Regina lifts one brow, says nothing. Waits. So that's permission, then? "How do you feel about kids?"

And then she softens, doesn't go kind by any means, but looks more weary than anything else, giving her head another little shake (her braid hangs on oh-so-tenuously), before she says slowly, carefully, "I... love them. I've actually been considering adoption."

Robin sits up a little straighter then, coffee set aside again as he finds himself genuinely intrigued by this new layer of her. "Really?" he asks curiously.

"Well, I'm not getting any younger, or any less single," she points out, and then her lips draw down at the corners, and she adds, "At least, I wasn't until last night. I don't need a father to be a mother, and… I would very much like to be a mother." Her voice has gone quiet, and he thinks if he squints he might catch a bit of wetness in her eyes, her face temporarily devoid of all its anger and irritation. For a moment, she just looks… yearning. That brief flicker of vulnerability passes with a subtle clearing of throat, and she continues, "Adoption seems the logical next step."

"But you haven't yet," he says, as much a question as a statement. Clearly she wants this – children, a child – but she hasn't gone forward with it, and he can't help wondering what holds her back. It's a big decision, he supposes. That's enough reason for anyone to delay.

"No, I haven't. I'm..." One hand rises to push at her hair, then stutters there, as if she's just remembered it's restrained rather poorly. She draws her hand back gingerly and continues, "I'm a busy woman. Successful, but self-made, and it takes a lot of time and attention to maintain that. I want to make sure that if I have a child, I can give it everything. All of the love and attention that it needs. I want to know that it will never feel… pushed aside, for career or… anything." She's looking at the table, poking her fork into a last piece of melon so many times the bloody thing looks like Swiss cheese by now, and she's started to twist as she pulls out, to make bigger holes. She won't look at him, her voice kept carefully even, but there's a tension in her lips, a flare in her nostrils. He thinks perhaps what she's saying is that she doesn't ever want a child to feel the way she does. Or perhaps he's just projecting what little he knows of her relationship with her own mother. He should stop assuming, start learning – start asking, but before he does, she concludes with, "That's not easy when you're doing it alone," and he thinks of Roland, of losing Marian. Of all that's meant.

"No," he agrees, in all seriousness. "It's not."

**.::.**

He means it. He says that, and he means it. She can hear it in his voice, and when she finally looks up at him again, she can see it written all over him (he's sort of an open book, isn't he?). And that's when she realizes he's not only a man with a child, but a single parent.

"What happened to your wife?" she can't help asking – there had been just enough pain in his eyes for her to know things had ended badly in one way or another.

"Cancer," he tells her, and through the constant surges of irritation and panic she's been feeling for the last, oh, ever since she woke up, she feels a lick of sympathy and guilt. "Two years ago last May."

"I'm sorry," she tells him, and she means it down to her core. Thinks of Daniel, and the sticky heat of blood on her fingers, the light leaving his eyes, and his face blurring through her tears. The diamond ring he'd died for glinting mockingly from the pavement at her knees, swallowed up slowly in crimson as he bled out. She swallows hard, inhales sharply, lets her fork fall to the table with a little clatter and pulls her hands into her lap. Her fingers find her left ring finger reflexively, and her stomach lurches at the feel of the gold band there. She twists it, loosens it, tugs it back to her first knuckle as she mutters, "It never does go away, does it?"

"Not as yet," he agrees. "I imagine she'll always hurt." Regina nods, and breathes, and tells herself not to cry in front of this man, even if he knows – understands – for the first time in a long time, someone understands what it's like to lose the person you love most in this world to something senseless and unfair. (All of a sudden, it's like she she's at war, both wanting to pitch the ring across the room and out the window and down to the street below and to push it back firmly into place and just stay here with him. Maybe sob a little. She thinks he'd probably be okay with that, this man who brings her contact solution and offers to be her husband to protect her from the wrath of her mother. He's crazy, but he's… sweet.)

"Are you alright?" he asks her softly, his hand settling on the table between them, palm up, again. This time she reaches over and takes it (her fingers are trembling – she doesn't usually react this strongly, but she's tired, and hungover, and confused, and she wishes for a moment, just one moment, she could go back to the blissful simplicity of the hour before Daniel was ripped away from her). Robin's fingers close around hers, cool but strong; he squeezes as much as holds, and Regina squeezes back.

"I'm fine," she assures him, forcing a smile, forcing the wave of grief to recede back into the roiling sea of jumbled emotions inside her. "My first love… I lost him. But it was a very long time ago. Old pain."

Old pain that feels very fresh right now, when he's stroking his thumb over her index finger and giving her a look filled with far too much empathy. "I'm sorry." His fingers pulse against hers, and he asks, "What of your husband, what happened to him?"

"That bastard?" Regina asks, lips quirking into a smirk, because when it comes to Leo, it's either smug satisfaction at how soundly she won that divorce, or the slick, sickly feeling of how long it took her to get to that point. And she's brought the mood down enough in the past few minutes. She draws her right hand back from Robin's, while her left thumb rubs his ring back and forth along her finger, and then she tells him, "Me."

Dimples peek out at her from a quick smile, Robin looking half bewildered but entirely amused as he teases (she thinks he's teasing?), "I do hope that implies divorce and not murder."

And this – the banter – is better than the heaviness of moments ago, much more comfortable, much more her wheelhouse, so she scrunches her nose a little bit and leans in conspiratorially to confess, "Oh no, I killed him in his bed while he slept. You've married yourself a black widow."

He laughs at that, and it's… a nice sound. She could… she could maybe spend a year with that laugh and be okay with it. Maybe.

"I'll take my chances," he assures.

Her phone picks just then to start buzzing in her lap, and she squints to make out the caller, frowning when she realizes it's her sister. Regina answers the call, lifts her phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

"You little bitch," is the first thing Zelena says to her, her accented voice sharp and accusatory. Well that's… unexpected.

"Excuse me?" Regina retorts, her dander up now as well – she's not a particularly huge fan of getting chewed out from the word 'go' by someone she hasn't even wronged. Add that to her very short fuse this morning, and she's set to  _Irritated_  immediately.

"All this time I've been trying to hook you up, you haven't mentioned anything about a boyfriend." Oh. That. Regina can see how that would be frustrating for Zelena, but it's not as though she has  _asked_ her sister to attempt to hook her up with every out of work actor, sun-bleached surfer or crunchy vegan Earth child who wanders into the redhead's yoga classes. In fact, Regina has politely attempted several times to ask her  _not_ to, but if there's one thing Zelena inherited from their mother, it's an irritating tenacity about the sad state of Regina's sex life. "I had to find out from  _her_."

"Oh God, she even called  _you_?" Regina groans, knowing that for Cora to deign to speak to her older daughter, she must have been desperate.

"Of course she did, she was fishing," Zelena informs her tartly, bitterly. "Said you'd called and rambled on and on about your new husband. She wanted to know if I knew him."

"What did you say?" Regina asks, lifting a hand to her brow and pressing her thumb into the spot where her temple is beginning to ache dully again. She should drink more water…

"I said it was none of her business and she'd have to ask you," Zelena sulks over the line, and thank God for that little bit of sisterly loyalty. "You're welcome, by the way."

 _And I would say thank you if you weren't being so damn salty about the whole thing_ , she mutters in her head. She'd say it out loud, but frankly, she needs Zelena now. If Mother called her, then that means there's a chance Mother thinks this whole thing is legitimate, and if she thinks that, then maybe Regina really can salvage her pride. She just needs to figure out exactly what it is Cora knows before she moves forward.

"Zel, I need you to do me a favor," she says, trying to keep her voice kind.

"Didn't I already?" her sister reminds, rerouting the conversation back in the direction she wants it with, "Who is this man?"

Regina ignores her question, telling her sister, "I need you to call Mother back and find out everything I told her. Find out what she knows."

"And why on earth would I do that when you didn't even deem this man worth mentioning to me, your own sister?"

Regina stops short of telling her that the reason she didn't mention him is because she only met him about, oh, twelve hours ago. She's not sure she's ready to admit that. And the only surefire way she knows to end a conversation with a very determined Zelena is to use her trump card. Her rarely used, probably in poor taste trump card.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because I saved your life."

There's a thunk of ceramic on cloth-covered wood and Regina looks up to find Robin looking at her curiously. She shakes her head – she'll have to tell him later, she supposes. Eventually. He'll ask, no doubt. But right now she has more pressing concerns than her –  _oh god_  – new husband.

Regina reaches for her coffee and swallows down the last of it to smother the swell of nausea she feels at the word.

Zelena is still talking. "Oh today you're a hero, is that it?" she questions, and Regina feels a little flare of guilt. She's certainly not that. "What happened to 'You don't owe me anything; that's not why I did this' and 'It's just nice to have family in town that I can stand'?"

_Way to twist the knife, sis._

Regina shuts her eyes, the ache in her head sharpening with every second she bickers with her sister. Apparently Advil and omelets cannot cure all.

"Zel, please."

Begging is not something she does often, but she's just... She's so  _weary_. Emotionally spent and it's not even noon. She thinks? What time  _is_  it? Kathryn had told her not to bother with trying to make lunch, and that was supposed to be one thirty, but surely she hadn't been cutting it  _that_  close? Had she?

There's a clock on the desk, she thinks – a blurry black shape – but she has no chance of making out the numbers.

"You sound like hell," Zelena tells her without a shred of sympathy just as Robin turns his head around to follow her gaze, turns back and mouths  _Time?_  Regina nods. "How hungover are you?"

 _Half two,_  he whispers and Regina's eyes widen. Yeah, there's no way lunch was going to happen.

"Hello?" Zelena demands, and Regina realizes she never answered her.

"Very," she mutters, reaching for the coffee pot and hoping there's a little bit left. There isn't. Just her luck.

"Serves you right," Zelena tells her and must she be so goddamned petulant?

Robin reaches across the table, swaps her coffee cup for his, and Regina frowns, reaches for it. There's maybe a quarter of a cup left. Did he...? Is he offering her the rest of his coffee? She tilts her head questioningly and he murmurs  _Yours if you want it._

Her lips curve a little. Contact solution and coffee dregs are the things that get her. Who knew? She lifts the cup to her mouth and takes a sip – it's too sweet, but it'll do. She mouths a  _Thank you_ , then turns her attention back to her sister.

"Can you please just do this for me?" Regina asks before trying to explain, "I need to know what I told her last night, so I can figure out what to tell her  _now_."

"Tell me the truth," Zelena challenges, "And I'll think about it."

"Oh for God's sake..." Regina mutters, finishing the coffee in two quick, irritated glugs. It's lukewarm anyway.

"Where did you meet him?"

"Jesus."

She's naming this headache after her sister. The Zelena West Memorial Headache. That's what she'll call it.

"How long have you been seeing him?"

All of these are questions she has no answer for, and she hasn't had the time nor the mental clarity to come up with any pretty lies since she woke up this morning.

"Zelena, none of this matters," Regina attempts, adding a "Please" for good measure.

"Why are you being so bloody cagey? If I didn't know better I'd think you got hammered and married a stranger."

Regina scoffs, looking at the fuzzy visage of the stranger she did, in fact, get hammered and marry.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," she says primly, but it must not be very convincing.

It must sound like the evasion it is because the next thing out of Zelena's mouth is a dawning, "Oh my God."

Shit.

"Zel-"

"You  _did_  get drunk and marry a stranger," she exclaims gleefully.

"Zelena–"

"Is he cute, at least?"

She's gone from irritation to gossip in a blink, and, well, maybe she'll at least be more amenable to Regina's request this way, so she blows out a breath and gives in.

"Yes. Very."

Her very cute...whatever he is... is dealing with their room service dishes now, stacking them neatly and standing to push the cart out into the hall.

"Well that's something," her sister says, sounding ever so pleased. "Wouldn't want my new brother-in-law to be a hideous beast."

"Please find out what I told her," Regina tries again." You know what she's like - she's already told the entire family. I'm hoping I can find some way to make it less… mortifying."

"For what it's worth, she seemed to think you were actually dating him. She wanted to know if I'd met the man who'd married her precious, perfect daughter."

There's a familiar bitterness to her tone there – one that smacks of hurt and rejection, and Regina can't really blame her. For all she's ever done to Regina, their mother has never left her to die rather than acknowledge her existence. Zelena can't say the same.

Still, she feels compelled to correct the gross overstatement of how well Cora sees her, telling Zelena in a tone of soft resignation, "You know that's not what she thinks of me."

"Do I?" Zelena shoots back. "And how would I know such a thing? It's not as though she speaks to me when it doesn't somehow service her. Meaning when it isn't somehow about you."

"Zel, I'm far too tired, and far too hungover, and far too surprise-married to go rounds about the way Mother feels about you, or me. Just please – will you do this for me?"

She glances up again when Robin stands next to her. "I'm going to take a shower," he tells her softly, and Regina nods her acknowledgement, then turns her attention back to Zelena, shutting her eyes for half a second when Robin's fingers give her shoulder a squeeze as he passes her, heads into the bedroom. And then she realizes she rather likes them closed, that the relative dark dulls her headache just a little bit, so she leaves them that way, slumping back into the couch as Zelena hems and haws and keeps her on the edge for a while longer.

Why can't anything ever just be simple?

**.::.**

He hopes it's not rude to duck out for a shower, but, well, he hasn't had one yet and he feels a bit... less than fresh. And on top of that, he'd felt a bit like he was spying on her – on this conversation with someone who clearly means a great deal to her, someone who's life she'd saved – and he'll have to get that story out of her later. She's just full of surprises, Regina is.

People she's saved, people she's lost… As he steps into the bathroom, clean clothes in hand, he can't help but think of that moment of shared grief they'd had before her phone had rung. Her heart's been terribly bruised, just as his has, and he wonders if that's part of the reason for her cynicism. Imagines it must be – how could it not be? – because even he has his moments where the loss of his Marian hits him keenly and he thinks perhaps it's not worth it to put oneself out there and get hurt again.

But then he remembers every brilliant moment with her, or sees her in Roland's dark curls, his mischievous smile, and that cynicism passes. Love is worth it. Love is always worth it.

He strips, muscles protesting – he still feels fairly shit, and imagines she must as well. She's looking better than she had that morning, certainly, but there's still a pallor to her, and her voice still scratches. She's rubbed her eyes a time or two in a way he thinks has nothing to do with the lack of proper lenses.

Her less than perfect state does nothing to diminish her beauty, as far as he's concerned. And therein lies the problem.

Robin twists the tap on, turns the heat up enough to fog the bathroom in short order and steps in with a sigh. He plants his palms against the wall of the shower stall, tips his head down into the spray, lets it rinse away the film of sleep and debauchery that still clings to him. Much better.

Water sluices down along his ears, his cheeks, drips off his nose and his chin, and he breathes shallowly and asks himself what the bloody hell he thinks he's doing out there. Getting himself married again – or rather, keeping himself married again – despite knowing next to nothing about this woman. Promising a year of no emotional entanglement despite the way he already feels about her after a few short hours. Pushing her to accept it even though she is clearly frightened.

But he just… he  _feels_  for her. He wants her. Wants her to stay here and bitch at him, to smile at him when he hits her humor just right, wants to do something, anything, whatever he can, to undo even a smidge of the damage that has made her so cynical, so hardened against something as wonderful and soul-soothing as love and marriage. She's not his to fix – doesn't need fixing, that's not the word for it, that's belittling – but he wants to help her see that there can be more. Even if it's not real, even if it's just pretending…

For the first time in... well, for the first time since Marian, he finds himself utterly captivated by a woman. He has no desire to meet up with the others, no desire to do anything but lounge around this room, and nurse twin hangovers while he gets to know this enigma of a woman he's found himself tethered to.

It's a dangerous feeling to fall prey to, especially if he really does only want to be her friend for as long as she needs. And he does, he does want that. He's not here to seduce her, doesn't intend to trick her into a relationship that is more than she can handle. He couldn't live with himself if he manipulated her to some selfish end, and he gets the impression that she wouldn't be able to live with such a thing either. If they're to do this, it has be exactly as he's promised – a year of companionship, of comfort, but no pressure for more, and a clean break at the end of things if that's what she wants.

If he can't give her that, he ought to back out now. Change his mind on her, come up with some other way to save face.

It might be better in the long run – perhaps they could just... date. They could tell her mother that marriage was a slip of the tongue, or that it had been a marriage for play, something that wasn't legally binding. Might it be easier?

A sharp knock and sudden rush of cool air accompany Regina cracking the bathroom door open, and Robin straightens (the ache in his shoulders as he does has him realizing he's been lost in thought longer than he'd realized), wiping his palm over his face to clear water from his eyes.

"Robin?"

"Yes, love?"

There's a pause – maybe he imagines it – and then she asks, "When's your son's birthday?"

"15th August," he tells her, finally reaching for the soap. He's about to ask why, but then the door shuts again with a click and he's alone. Well, alright then...

He lathers, and sighs, and thinks of Roland. She's right, he supposes. They'll have to be careful with him. Little boys aren't excellent deceivers (leastways not about things like this - things like fish fingers hidden in the planter when a parent's back is turned and not discovered until they begin to smell, that's another story altogether), they can't expect him to hold up this ruse of theirs, can't put that sort of thing on a preschooler. And it would be unfair to get Regina too far entrenched in his life only to take her away, she's right about that, too. He's already lost a mother once; he can't be put through that again. They'll have to introduce her in such a way that they can bond but not become terribly attached too quickly. A friend. Perhaps a girlfriend, but... nothing more.

Robin rinses suds from his skin and sighs, thinking they should have thought this through a bit better. Thinking that it's sounding more and more complicated the longer he mulls it over. Sure, here in this room, it sounds like a dream. Stay married, treat her with love and respect and kindness until she stops expecting anything else, make her laugh, go toe-to-toe with her temper and her snark. But they do have to leave this room eventually, and find some way to pull off  _marriage_  in front of her friends and family - and his as well, should their circles ever blend.

Perhaps she's right, and the whole thing  _is_  too crazy. But then... if she's right, if they walk away, if she leaves this room one foot toward annulment, she'll spend the rest of her life believing that selfishness wins out, that marriage is doomed to fail, that it's a fool's errand. And if he walks away on her now, won't he just be proving that? Proving that such a bond is only worth keeping as long as it's easy, as long as it's self-serving? He's not sure he could live with that either. With knowing she's out there somewhere, alone, because she doesn't believe there's any value to be found in being otherwise.

This whole thing is a mess. A complicated, confusing mess.

Perhaps they should talk, really talk - calmly and objectively - about what this will all mean, before they make a final decision. (Robin squirts shampoo into his palm, lathers up his hair.) His suggestion that she take the rest of the weekend to mull it over is probably for the best. That bit of time will probably serve them both well. (He tips his head back, lets the shampoo rinse out and down his body, down the drain).

Yes, they'll wait a spell. Get their bearings. Make the choice together. No more pushing from him, he vows that then. They'll talk, and they'll choose, but he won't lobby. He won't cajole.

He twists the tap off once his hair is clean, scrubs a towel over his skin, and dresses.

The room is eerily silent when he emerges – he'd thought she might still be talking, but she's not. For a moment, he thinks perhaps she's left, but as he steps out of the bedroom, he sees that she's still there. Sitting on the sofa with her knees curled up, a bent arm cushioning her head against the back of the sofa while the hotel notepad rests on one thigh, a pen clutched loosely in her hand. Asleep?

He says her name softly, and she doesn't respond. Asleep, must be. He can't say he blames her - he feels like he could crawl into bed right here and now and sleep the rest of the day away. Robin steps closer and tilts his head until he can read what's on her notepad (spying perhaps, but curiosity gets the best of him). Her hand covers some, but he can make out  _8/15 - met (new room for R's bday)_ and  _April - engaged (K's thunder)_. Notes, he realizes. Notes about… them? There's something else scrawled lower down, but it runs beneath her wrist, all he sees is  _Married - v. dr_  and then the words are lost behind skin.

He reaches for the pad, eases it gently from under her hold (she jerks a little, sighs softly, but doesn't wake), sees the rest of what she'd written:  _Married - v. drunk, ran into each other here w/ friends, married on whim but sticking with it_.

His lips curve at that last part, and he wonders if she really will – stick with it, that is. If this will be their new story, sketched out on hotel stationery, a love story of her own making.

And if it is to be their story, well, then, he can't have his lovely bride in the path of pain, and the way she's scrunched against the sofa will surely have a crick in her neck when she wakes. So he sets the pad aside, eases the pen from her slackened grasp, and then strokes the back of his finger along her cheek softly, whispering her name once, and then again.

Heavy lashes flutter, and then she's sucking in a breath, sitting up, murmuring something about how she's just resting her eyes. But she's blinking, blinking, wincing, her mouth drawn into a pout, and he thinks this is silly, this 'just resting her eyes.' What she needs is  _rest_ , real and proper rest. The best and most effective cure for a hangover in his book.

So he urges gently, "Move to the bed, darling. Have a bit of a lie down."

"Mm, no, I have to–" She yawns, a great, wide thing stifled by her hand and ending on a high little sound. "Have to get back to my room."

"For what?"

Her eyelids droop slightly, but she pops them wide again, shakes her head, and Robin urges her one more time, "There's no harm in a nap when you're feeling poorly. Come on." One hand loops gently around her bicep and tugs, attempts to guide her up and to her feet.

It's like a bucket of cold water for reasons unknown to him. But whatever the cause, she's inhaling sharply, shaking his loose grasp off of her arm, eyes open. She shakes her head a little as if to clear it, then says, "Maybe a short nap? Half hour?"

"I'll set an alarm," he assures, and then finally she's rising, wobbling a little – the exhaustion seems to have hit her like a freight train, all at once and hard.

Robin steers her toward the bedroom, the big, soft mattress, and watches her crawl in beneath the sheets and cocoon herself in blankets. He smirks. Probably a good thing they won't be living together if this is how she hogs covers.

"Do you mind if I join you?" he asks, body begging for sleep as well.

Regina cranes her neck back toward him and grunts.

Then she faces forward again, curled amidst the covers with her back to him, and murmurs, "No. Go 'head," and then softly, bleeding off a bit at the end but still clear: "'S'what spouses do, right?"

Robin can't help smiling at that, holds that smile the whole time it takes him to set the alarm on his phone and settle himself on the bed along with her, stealing what he can of the sheets since she's commandeered the entire top blanket.

"That it is," he says quietly, pleased – and, he's fairly certain, good and married again.


	4. Chapter 4

Awareness comes slowly. It starts with his eyes still firmly shut. That sort of dizzy, heavy-lidded meandering into consciousness. The confusion of wakefulness before one is truly ready for such. And then he feels it, a light tickle from wrist to elbow, slow dragging swirls of fingertips on skin. That's what's woken him.

Robin flutters open gluey eyes to find Regina's staring at him.

Her hand stills, her mouth pulling into a soft frown.

"Sorry," she rasps. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Robin blinks and grunts, shifting slightly and only then realizing the way his arm is draped over her belly as she lies flat on her back beside him. The blankets are rucked down to their hips, but he has some of them now. It seems she knows how to share after all.

"What time's'it?" he slurs slightly, sucking in a deep breath of air to push oxygen to his sleepy brain.

Regina's shoulders shrug against the mattress. "Not sure," she says. "The alarm hasn't gone off yet."

Robin frowns. The alarm wasn't set for long; what on earth is she doing awake so quickly? Her fingers twitch against his wrist, as if to move again, then fall still.

"You're awake?" he questions. "You were so tired; I thought you'd sleep clear through to the alarm."

Her gaze skirts away from him then, up toward the ceiling, and he watches the shift in her throat as she swallows heavily. Her braid has long ago given up, leaving her hair a wavy mass around her head, stark against the white of the pillowcase. Her tongue creeps out, wets her lips, and then she says carefully, "I'm not used to sleeping with someone else." Her gaze darts to him, brow pinching as she adds, "I've  _slept_  with people, but I don't usually… sleep with people." He gets her meaning – she's no blushing virgin, but she doesn't invite many men to stay the night. He absorbs the information with interest, but no judgment. "I woke up when…" Her fingertips tap against his forearm gently, and realization dawns on him: he woke her. Whenever his sleeping self decided it was time for a cuddle, he pulled her straight out of sleep. Out of comfort, perhaps?

Robin pulls his arm back sheepishly, murmuring an apology, but her fingertips catch his and hold, stilling him with his arm just off of her. Their joined fingers rest against her elbow now, and she shakes her head, tells him softly that it's alright.

"Just… startled me. I'm not used to… being touched when I'm sleeping." She gives him a little smile then, but it's tense, doesn't come anywhere near her eyes. However fine she says it is, he suspects otherwise. Still, he can't resist the urge to draw their hands closer to him and up, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckle and then returning her hand to her side, releasing it.

"I'm sorry," he says again, gently. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"I know," she nearly whispers, the whole conversation in hushed tones. It feels sleepy, lazy, like a conversation upon waking ought to be. A far cry from the griping and yanking he'd woken to this morning. "It's okay," she assures. "I got a few minutes of sleep. And a few minutes of just… lying here. Resting. Thinking."

Robin smiles at that. "A lot on your mind, I'm sure."

She nods, breathes, looks at the ceiling again. For all her sass and fire before, now she's downright mellow. Contemplative, perhaps. He might go so far as to say troubled, when her brow crinkles again, her mouth pursing into a soft scowl. Her arms are over her belly, crossed, just a hair too tight to be considered lazy. It looks protective, like a shield, has him frowning himself at the idea she might feel she needs such a thing while she lies with him. Or perhaps it's subconscious - maybe she's keeping their complicated situation at bay?

Either way he feels the need to tell her, "Next time - if there's a next time - just shove me off."

She turns her head back toward him again, one corner of her mouth tipping up. "It really is okay," she assures. "I wasn't upset, just surprised."

"You look tense," he tells her, fingers daring to reach out and trail along her arm from sleeve to elbow. She glances at his hand, but doesn't move.

"I've been thinking about the last time I was married," she admits, and Robin stills his hand, glances up at her. "It was… unpleasant."

"It would have to be, I imagine, for your views on marriage to be what they are." Her head bobs slightly, and he watches her face carefully. Her expression has gone a bit unreadable. Serious, but he cannot determine in quite what way. "You ended it," he prods gently, because she'd said as much before. Another scant nod, and her expression shifts. No, it doesn't, her face doesn't move a bit, but something changes in the eyes. She's unguarded all of a sudden, vulnerable. And he knows. He just knows - he remembers the way she'd gone from sleepy to alert at the grasp of his hand against her arm, thinks of her waking to his touch and ruminating on relationships past, and he knows. "He hurt you."

Those eyes harden again, not quite flinty, but closed off, and her voice is quiet but firm as she says, "I don't want to talk about that."

"That's fine," he tells her, because he won't poke at tender spots. That's not his intent. But if they're going to go through with this, there are things he needs to know. "But I don't want to hurt you, or frighten you. And I know that sort of thing can linger. Will you tell me what… makes you anxious? So I don't do it?" Her eyes go soft again, and pained, and she shifts, finally, from her back to her side, so they're facing each other. But she doesn't offer up anything, not for a minute. So he leads, "You don't like to be touched while you're asleep."

Regina shakes her head, tells him, "That's really okay. I just wasn't expecting it, and for a second when I woke…" She trails off, then forges ahead, "But I knew it was you. I didn't mind, it just got me thinking."

"You're certain?"

"Yes," she smiles at him then, genuine, if a bit indulgent and he can't help thinking how lovely she is. One of her hands falls on top of his where it rests in the slim gulf of mattress between them, and she teases, "Stop worrying about it. I'd hope by now you'd have realized that if you piss me off, I'll let you know."

Robin grins at that, quick and amused, a chuckle chasing after. "That you will," he concurs, because of course she would. She's been quite free with her ire, and her wrath.

_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

His phone alarm goes off, loud and blaring (he's not an easy waker when he's overtired), and Regina jumps a mile, jerking and sucking in a breath, one hand slamming up to her heart, and he has just enough time to see her eyes go starkly fearful before he scrambles to his other side to quiet the alarm.

**.::.**

"Jesus,  _that's_  your alarm?" Regina questions harshly, her heart hammering, breath quick before she slows it intentionally, taking a deep inhale, blowing it out and then drawing in one more. She's not usually so jumpy, but he has quite possibly the most grating, air-horn-esque tone one can find on an iPhone, and it had been loud. Unexpected. And well, he wants to know her triggers, so what better place to start? "I don't like sudden loud noises," she tells him. Her eyes roll a bit as she expounds, "Alarms are usually fine, although that one is a bit… much."

"I'll change it," he says without hesitation, and she nods, appreciative.

"Doors slamming, balloons popping, cars backfiring. Any kind of loud...bang." They bring her back to Daniel, to the loud release of a bullet from a gun, to what was undoubtedly the worst night of her life. To her mother's cold rage when she was young and open-palmed slaps that stung so harshly her eyes watered and her cheek stayed pink for long minutes afterward, and to Leo and the slamming of the front door that let her know she was in for another inane, suspicious tirade about something he'd blown far out of proportion.

"Alright." His fingers brush hers again, and she slips hers against them, not quite holding hands, just fitting their fingers between each other's on the sheets. His index finger coasts once along the length of hers and back, and she feels jangled nerves settle further. He's all earnest curiosity when he asks, "Anything else?"

"I don't like to be grabbed," she says, looking at their hands now, a bit blurry without her contacts (her eyes are starting to ache, she should put them back in, or go back to her hotel – probably the latter). "Or pulled. Yanked."

"Your arms," he says, and she nods, frowns a little, looking at him inquisitively. How'd he know? "I lifted you by your arm earlier and you shook me off right away."

"Right." It's a hazy memory, sleep-dulled, but yes, she thinks. He had, and she had. "And, um…" There are other things, must be, and she tries to think of them, the things that make her pulse race, the things that make her belly run hot with adrenaline. For a moment, she tries to recall the worst of Leo, the moments she felt the most trapped, the most… fearful. There's only one more thing she can think of to tell him. "If we fight - if you're angry..." Chances are good – they've been bickering since the moment they woke this morning; at some point in the next year, they'll no doubt devolve into a screaming match. "Just give me some space. Don't be… like this." She gestures to the space between them, less than a foot, closer than she'd like to be stood over and yelled at. "Right up in my face. I  _hate_  that."

Leo had done it, when his temper was up. Had more than once grabbed her by the biceps and accused her of all manner of ridiculous and untrue things, his face too close, his fingers bruising against her arms.

"That's not really my style," Robin assures her, one hand lifting as if to stroke against her skin, her arm, but he halts before he makes contact.

Regina smiles.

"You can touch," she says, "Just don't…" Her own hand rises now, reaches for his upper arm and squeezes, " _Grab._ "

"Got it," he nods, his fingers sliding along the skin of her arm up from her elbow and then back down, and he's looking at her with far too much sympathy all of a sudden. She doesn't want that. Doesn't want sympathy, or worse - pity. She's already told him as much, but maybe he needs to hear it again before it takes. She's more than willing to let him know the things that trigger her into low-grade anxiety or mild panic, but the last thing she wants is for him to look at her like she's… damaged.

"Stop looking at me like that," she tells him sternly. "I'm fine. I left. I should have left sooner, but I left. And I'm not a victim, I'm not some charity case, I don't want you treating me like I'm made of candy glass just because some other man didn't know how to keep his hands to himself when he was in a temper." Robin has the decency to look chastened, to wipe that sickening sympathy from his gaze. "If we do this, it's not about that. I won't stay with you if you think I'm… weak."

"I don't think that," he corrects her, not missing a beat and fully sincere. "I think you're strong. And beautiful. And witty, and smart."

"I married a man whose name I couldn't even remember the next morning; how smart can I really be?" she drawls, and that does it. Lightens the mood, has him laughing again, although there's a certain amount of truth to what she's saying. This whole mess they're in is incredibly stupid.

"Nonsense," he dismisses with a wave of his hand, before shifting to prop himself up, elbow against his pillow, hand to his ear. "So whose life did you save?" he asks curiously, and it takes her a moment to remember what he's talking about, to remember how she'd strong-armed her sister into helping her.

"Ah," she says, wriggling a little herself, tugging her top down where it's ridden up on her belly. "That would be my sister. Half-sister. Zelena."

"Save her from a burning building?" he asks, joking but dead-serious about it.

"No," Regina chuckles. "Bone marrow." His brows tick up at that, impressed or maybe just interested, it's hard to be sure. "That's how I found out about her. Mother gave her up when she was born, never breathed a word of it. I don't think my father even knew. Zel tracked down the family looking for a match, and Mother wouldn't even take her calls. But she found me, and got lucky."

"Your mother wouldn't take the calls of her own ill daughter?"

"She's a real piece of work," Regina mutters. "And she doesn't see it that way. Zelena's not her daughter, she's a mistake. One she'd tried very hard to put behind her. That she called her about us means she's… desperate. Which is good. It means she might actually believe that we're married."

"Met in August, engaged last month," he confirms, and she frowns. "I saw your notes."

Oh. That.

"Zel wouldn't agree to call her back without something to tell," Regina explains. "I've been very artfully keeping you a secret for the better part of a year. Mother will be furious."

**.::.**

It thrills her, just a little bit, to pull one over on her mother. It must do, because she smiles as she says it, her nose scrunching, her eyes lighting with satisfied humor as she leans in and speaks. Their knees bump beneath the covers, bare legs against bare legs.

Robin smiles.

"Aren't we sneaky," he teases, smiling back at her. "How did we meet? Tell me our love story, Regina."

Her lips twitch, her smile softening into something a little more unsure, and she looks down at the sheets between them, shrugs her shoulder in a scant jerk.

"I redecorated your son's room for his birthday," she explains. "Which I'll do when we get back to LA, free of charge. Just give me a theme."

Roland would love it, a brand new room, but Robin shakes his head. "You don't have to do that."

One perfectly sculpted brow lifts in challenge. "I do if we want people to believe that's how we met. And I don't mind."

"I'll pay you."

"You don't-"

"Regina, I insist," he tells her, fighting the urge to reach for her again. He's usually quite free with physical contact, but knowing what he knows about her now - that there was abuse, that despite her insistence that she was unbothered by it, he was able to rouse her from much-needed sleep with just a touch - he thinks perhaps he should give her a bit of space. No matter how soft her skin is, or how much he's tempted to punctuate each sentence with a stroke or the linking of fingers. She's his wife, but she's still mostly a stranger. He'd do well to remember that in some regards. "If you're doing work for me, I want you compensated."

"You're giving up a year of your life to play husband for a woman you don't know, who has a family crazy enough that she's actually agreed to something so completely insane," Regina points out. "Consider that payment enough."

Fair enough, he supposes, so he switches course, asking her, "Did I flirt shamelessly with you?" and enjoying the way her brow furrows in confusion. He likes her face. Likes watching it shift and change with her moods, her thoughts. Now that she seems to be freed from her perpetually sour mood, he's discovering a whole myriad of new and lovely shades to her.

"What?" she asks, predictably.

"While you were working on Roland's room," he tells her, and her brow smooths back out as realization dawns. "Was I a charmer?"

"You?" she questions, and her expression goes snarky, her eyes rolling. "Probably not. You were probably obnoxious."

Robin grins, unbothered by the little barb. "And yet you fell for me," he says with a nod. If he makes it a bit smug, well, why not?

Her mouth moves into a half smile, and all she gives him is, "And yet."

"Did I ask you out?" he wonders, although it seems she's only built the bare bones of their imagined life. Plenty for them to fill in together. "Or did you ask me?" She purses her lips slightly and studies him, debating, he thinks. "Or was it one of those things like in the movies where we were bickering madly and then succumbed to the passion and sexual tension that had been burning between us for weeks?"

She snorts a little laugh, shaking her head and then shifting onto her back and stretching her arms up over her head, letting her torso go long and arched. Her neckline pulls with the movement, her breast straining against it, a bit of black lace peeking out at him, and Robin looks away until after she's collapsed back into the mattress with a satisfied, grunting exhale.

"You probably asked me," she sighs, one hand over her head now, fingers threaded lazily into the hair at her crown. She's fixed her shirt. She looks comfortable now, and he wonders at her trust in him. At someone who's been through what she has being so willing to lie beside a man she barely knows, in borrowed clothes, in a strange bed. "I probably agreed begrudgingly, won over by those stupid dimples."

"Probably so," he chuckles, pleased to know there's something about him she finds irritatingly attractive. Her derision for the better part of the morning has been an odd sort of contrast to how interested he remembers her being last night. She'd been flirtatious and warm (had thrown her fair share of sass at first, sure, but she'd warmed up quickly, he recalls that much), something he's only seen in bits and pieces today. The attitude is a wall, he supposes. A protective gate, but one she seems to be slowly lowering. Or at the very least peeking around from time to time.

Her hand slides down from her hair to cover her eyes, and she lets out another sigh. What he can see of her looks weary. She really did need the sleep he interrupted.

"Still tired?" he asks, and she nods, but turns her head and peers at him around her fingers.

"A bit. We had a late night."

Robin's smile is slow-growing, gauzy memories of them together working their way into his mind. White teeth dug into red-painted lips as she bit down a moan, her nails scraping lightly against his side, her breath against his ear as he covered her neck in kisses. He suddenly regains the memory of sinking into her for the first time, of her parted lips, the look of anticipation on her face giving way to a flutter of lashes and a slackened jaw, and to having to tuck his face against her shoulder for a moment lest he make a fool of himself. Streaks of moonlight across her belly, her bare breasts – he blinks rapidly, trying to tug at  _those_  particular memories, because those were here. Later. After. He wishes he had more of that to draw from.

And then he catches the way she's watching him, like she can tell just what he's thinking about, and he feels a flush of guilt. Her eyes look uncertain, almost worried - no, that's not the word, and he's not sure what is. Her voice is quiet again when she asks, "How much do you remember?"

Unnerved. That's the word. She looks unnerved by what she doesn't know, or maybe by what he does? So he offers her honesty. It's the least he can do. "I remember quite a bit of our night at the club."

"I remember dancing," she says. "And... kissing. And I'm pretty sure the phrase 'get a room' would have been appropriate..."

Robin fights down a smirk, and admits, "I might have gotten a bit handsy."

"And then we...?" Regina's brows quirk up in question, and he nods.

"In the bathroom," he informs, and she blinks, blinks again, frowns.

"Did I leave my underwear there?"

She had, he remembers suddenly - he'd forgotten about that. She'd declared her thong a casualty after shimmying it to the semi-damp, not-entirely-clean floor to give him access. "You did," he says, and she lets out a dry laugh, shaking her head.

"Well, that explains that," she mutters, and he glances down toward her blanket-covered hips at the sudden realization that she's been going commando all morning. Robin licks his lips and pushes the thought away before he can dwell on it.

Regina's face scrunches as she tries to pull more memories forward. "The stalls were like little rooms. Private. And the door was that sort of... frosted glass?"

"Mmhmm," he confirms, slipping his hand closer until his fingers rest against her arm. She starts to speak again, says  _I..._  and then shakes her head, her gaze searching his face like somehow that will fill in the gaps. "What do you want to know?"

Her eyes shut quickly, her lips pressing together before she turns her face forward again, tucks it back under her hand. She breathes in, out, evenly, and Robin's heart aches. "I don't... I don't remember."

"I know, darling," he tells her quietly, his fingertip rubbing up from the mattress and back down, once, twice, a third time. He feels compelled to tell her he's sorry, and so he does. "I didn't realize you were so far gone, or I wouldn't have-"

She's shaking her head, dropping her hand back to the pillow and telling him, "It's not your fault. You were drunk, too. I just wish I could..."

She trails off again, and he wishes he could give her everything - every moment, every memory, hazy as they are. Wishes there was some way to download them from his thoughts into hers.

. **.::.**

It's largely a blank.

She remembers the door, remembers the frosted grey of it over his shoulder, and the way the bare skin of her upper back had pulled against the tile wall, remembers wincing and him murmuring apologies and slipping his free hand up behind them to cushion her.

It's more than she remembered five minutes ago, and she frowns, tries for more. His other hand had been busy, had been somewhere... her knee? He'd been holding her knee up by his hip, while he – while they –

"Did we use a condom?" she asks suddenly, frowning, not that it matters, the chances of her getting pregnant are slim to none, but still, he's a stranger.

"We did," he confirms, and then he's smirking slightly, tilting his head like the memory is just coming to him when he says, "Two, actually. You tried to open the first one with your teeth and caught the latex. We had to use another."

Regina smirks, then, too, dropping her hand back over her face and muttering, "Oh, God."

"Wait – that was–" He frowns. "That was here, I think. Not at the club."

"Do you remember us here?" She hates him a little, for how much he remembers that she doesn't. Hates him, but is also grateful, because she has a feeling that if she asked him to tell her – to tell her every little detail he remembers, he probably would. No matter how awkward such a conversation might turn out to be.

"Some," he tells her, his fingertip against her arm again, tiny little strokes, almost like scratches, like he's afraid to touch her now, or afraid to touch too much. "Bits and pieces. I remember you were on top."

"I would be," she mutters, because she usually is. She finds it mildly claustrophobic, being underneath someone (Leo, hot and heavy on top of her, her belly twisting with discontent, her palms sweaty against the sheets).

But Robin doesn't know that, Robin just thinks she's bossy, so he chuckles and says, "You would be, yes." She smiles, but doesn't sell it. She must not, because he sobers, says, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't – this isn't funny."

She reminds herself she's slept with this man, even if her memories of it are hazy-to-nonexistent, even if she has no intention of doing it again, and that there's no point in being shy about it. "I'm usually on top," she tells him. "That's... my preference. Or at least, not being on the bottom."

He's not quite sure what to do with that information, it seems, can only manage to nod, and tell her, "Noted," and, well, there's no need for that. For notation.

"Not information you need to retain," she reminds him, and he nods again, chastened, tells her,  _Right. Sorry_. God, this whole thing is an awkward mess. She doesn't... Doesn't know how to handle this. How to navigate this, trying to piece together the events of a blackout, how to behave with a man she's had sex with not once but twice and still has little memory of, a man she is  _married_  to – oh God, she's married,  _married_ , again, her breath hitches, her chest tightening for a second before she reminds herself to breathe, deep, steady breaths...

She's not sure she can do this. Them. Not sure she can keep this up, can be married again, after everything, she doesn't  _want_  to be married again.

But she's already told Zelena, her sister is already going to call their mother and Regina doesn't have much of a choice at this point, she's committed.

Her hands move to scrub over her face again, palms settling against her eyes as she focuses on her breathing, in... out... in... out... Calm. Be calm.

Robin's voice next to her is soft and concerned, "What can I do? How can I help you right now?"

"Are you not bothered by this whole situation?" she questions, and she doesn't like the sound of her voice. The tension. The anxiety. Breathe. Deep breaths. Be calm.

"I'm more concerned with you at the moment," he tells her. "You look like you're about two seconds from a panic attack." All Regina can do is nod, because, yes, that's not far off. This is... this is all happening too fast, and it's  _marriage_ , and she can't  _remember_...

Her next breath in shudders.

"Tell me how I can help," he pleads again, and she wishes he would go away, and also wishes he would touch her arm again. Would soothe. She could do with some soothing. And some vodka. (Ugh, the thought of more liquor still turns her stomach.)

"Can you–" She swallows, her throat feels tight, her chest feels tight. Breathe. Just breathe. Be calm. "Can you tell me what you remember?"

She needs to know. She just... she needs to know.

**.::.**

"Of course," he answers her question. "How much do you want to know? How much detail?"

He'll tell her whatever she needs to keep her sanity right now, even if it means recounting some rather... x-rated scenarios.

Her fingers are trembling. Her palms are pressed to her eyes, but her fingers brush her hairline and he can see how unsteady they are. Robin lifts his hand, hooks his pinky around hers, and she grips back immediately, tightly, whispering, "Everything. Please."

He nods, then remembers she can't see him.

"Okay," says, and, "Where do you want me to start? What's the last you remember?"

She thinks she remembers leaving the dance floor, or remembers wanting to leave the dance floor. She remembers his hand between her legs on the dance floor, she tells him. That's the last thing she's sure of.

So he starts there. Tries to focus, to remember as much as he can, starts with the way she'd been grinding back against him and how much he'd wanted her, and one of them – he can't be certain who, he thinks maybe her but he knows he was thinking it too – suggested they go somewhere more private. He tells her what he remembers of the bathroom, kissing, groping, his hands on her thighs, hers under his shirt, her underwear down and off. Touching her, and then more, then being with her. She said she wanted all the details, but he tries to give them to her plainly. He leaves out how turned on he'd been by the whole thing, leaves out the more erotic aspects if at all possible. Focuses on the events he can recall and not the feelings that had gone along with them, but he's still half-hard by the time he talks about kissing her to dampen the noise as she came.

She's chewing her bottom lip, nodding from time to time, but her hands stay where they are.

"We left afterward," he remembers. "You wanted to walk for a bit. Said you didn't want to go back to your friends. We went back to the bar for another drink - tequila shots, I think. And then we left."

"You licked my neck."

It's the first thing she's said since he started talking.

"Yes. I took the salt off your neck."

She nods.

"It's all sort of muddled after that," he admits, and she frowns, turns to look at him. Her eyes are dry, but a bit red.

"Was there a fountain?" she asks, and he thinks there might have been? Has a hazy memory of water. "When we were walking."

"Maybe? I think so." Their hands are still linked, sunk back to the pillow between them, but the angle is awkward, so he shifts, adjusts to something more comfortable for both of them. "Do you remember any of that? Did it help?"

Regina's head jerks, almost a nod, but she still looks confused. Lost. He doesn't think he jogged much of her memory. Still, she says, "Thank you. You remember us here? After?"

"I don't remember getting married," he tells her, because he has absolutely no memory of that – something that irks him, because for him to be blackout drunk, for them both to be, and for someone to still marry them, makes him angry. Clearly they weren't in their right minds, and how likely is it that they're both such cogent drunks that they could be that many sheets to the wind and still appear to be have the faculties for making such a decision? "All I remember is..." He frowns, pulls at the gossamer edges of recollection, comes up with nothing more than, "You were on top. I went down on you first, I think. I remember being between your thighs. I remember your breasts. That's it, though – nothing solid, just patches."

Regina tugs the covers a bit higher, up to her chest, breathing slowly and looking away from him. "Okay."

"I'm sorry," he tells her, unsure now how many times he's apologized, but the more he's spoken, the more he's pushed himself to recall and recount, the guiltier he feels.

"It's okay," she starts, but he won't have it. Not now.

"It's not. Clearly, it's not. You wouldn't have done all that if-"

"Oh, I would have," she tells him, giving him a little smile then, one that seems genuine. "I was... very, very attracted to you. I'm not mad at you, Robin, I don't feel... violated or anything. I just... I don't remember." Her brow pinches, then relaxes, and she mutters dryly, "Which is a shame, because it sounds like it was pretty decent sex."

He lets himself huff out a laugh at that, because she seems to have settled some. Her fingers aren't shaking anymore, at least. "First round was rather nice, yes." Regina gives him a glare, but it's half-hearted. "Sorry."

" _That_  you can apologize for," she mutters, and he smirks, shifts a bit so they're no longer touching. She doesn't say anything else, not for a minute or so, and Robin doesn't have much to say either, thinks perhaps a bit of quiet is good if her mind is a bit loud. She seems lost in thought, her index finger scratching idly at the top edge of the blanket as she stares unfocused across the room.

And then she yawns, a great, wide thing that sneaks up on her, her hand only rising to her mouth halfway through.

Robin smiles.

"You never did get a proper nap in," he reminds needlessly before suggesting, "We could go back to sleep for a little while. I promise to keep me hands to myself this time so you can rest."

She turns her head and looks at him, looks ever so slightly reluctant. "I have dinner plans…"

His phone is still there on the bed, so Robin reaches for it, checks the time. It's afternoon, still, and this is Las Vegas. Surely, she can afford a bit of shut-eye. "You've still plenty of time before that. Unless your dinner plans are at an old folks home."

She smirks, breathes out something that might be a laugh, and then agrees, "Forty-five minutes, tops. And change your alarm."

He'll do one better, Robin thinks, pulling up the alarm on his phone, setting it for forty-five minutes from now, and then handing it over to her. "You pick."

She takes the phone from him with a smile, and scrolls through the list of available alerts. It's no surprise to him now that she selects something melodic, something that isn't harsh, and then hands the phone back to him to be safely deposited on the nightstand.

When he turns back she's watching him, her lips pressed firmly together.

"What is it?" he coaxes, and she sighs gently, licks her lips, cocks her head.

"Would it be alright if...?" Regina scoots closer, close, reaching for his arm and opening it, then sliding into the space she's made. Sliding right up against him. She wants to be held? "If we fall asleep like this, it won't wake me when you inevitably decide to use me as a teddy bear."

Ah. That makes sense, he supposes. And he certainly doesn't mind. She's said it all snarky, but he can see the hint of vulnerability in her gaze, the bit of hope that he'll agree. He knows her better now than the last time they'd fallen asleep together, and knowing what he does, he can't help wondering if her life has been one with a distinct lack of soothing contact. So he'll offer it now, offer it gladly.

"Of course. Come here, Mrs. Locksley," he can't keep from teasing her (he's by no means a perfect man), and she glares harshly, whaps his chest hard enough to push out an  _oof!_  He laughing as he tells her, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Come here."

She settles down against him, then, her head cradled against his shoulder, and Robin drapes his arm along her back, runs his palm across her in slow passes. She's tense at first, but it doesn't take her long to relax, her body slowly going pliant and warm against his own. She falls asleep first; it takes Robin a bit longer, his fingers continuing to stroke and soothe for a while. He's not sure when sleep claims him, just remembers the heat of her body against his, the smell of his shampoo on her hair, her arm a dead weight in the center of his chest, and then nothing.

**.::.**

Regina wakes to the familiar sound of her alarm, and the alien feeling of a warm body against hers. She's hot, and her neck aches from the slight angle it's been at against his shoulder, her leg feels sleep-heavy where it's draped between his. He's hard against her thigh, she realizes, but she was married long enough to know that it's probably nothing, just a reflex of sleep – or maybe the result of sleeping with a woman he's clearly attracted to – but the urge to call him on it is too great.

She forces herself to move, lifts her head and levers up onto her elbow (he grunts, shifts and stretches his arm out for his phone, the alarm still pinging merrily away), giving him a pointed look. She holds it while he kills the alarm and turns back to her, and when he sees it, he frowns.

"What?"

She lifts one brow, shifts her gaze down the bed, then looks back up.

The smile he gives her is a bit sheepish, and his palm gives her back a quick rub that feels good and so must be stopped. "It happens," is all he says, and Regina  _Mmhmm_ s tartly and extricates herself from his hold, sitting and rubbing her palms over her face.

She's still tired, a bit groggy, and all too aware of how much she'd let him see between naps. How much she'd told him, how… vulnerable she'd been. She doesn't do vulnerable, not with strange men – not even with familiar men – and now she feels embarrassed. Silly. Exposed.

She should really get going.

"Are you feeling better?" he asks, and she scowls. He's too concerned for her, too caring, too kind. She aches for more, and that terrifies her. This is a temporary fix, a business deal, and however much she enjoys his gentle touches, his understanding, his tenderness, she cannot get sucked in. She cannot spend the whole day in bed with this man, can't abandon her friends for some… fling? But it's not that anymore, is it? It's more than that, it's a… relationship of some kind. A marriage. A commitment.

She needs to go. She needs some space to think, to process.

She needs to text Zelena and tell her to not call Mother yet if she hasn't already, to give her some more time to mull over whether this is really what she wants to do. Robin said she could have the weekend, right? That she didn't have to decide now.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asks, and she realizes she never answered his last question. And yet, there he stays, cool as a cucumber, watching her, his hand resting against her spine.

"I'm thinking I should go if I'm going to have time to get ready for dinner," she tells him, her voice scratchy with sleep.

"Probably right," he agrees, and thank God for that. His fingers give her a little scratch and then fall back to the mattress, and Regina takes the opportunity to slide all the way to the other side of the bed and stand. Her back is all out of whack – she's not used to sleeping curled up with someone like that – so she stretches to one side and then the other, sighing when her spine gives a satisfying little pop. Much better. There's still a twinge when she rolls her neck from side to side, but maybe a few minutes under a hot shower will solve it.

Something she can have just as soon as she gets back to her hotel room.

"I'll see you back," he tells her, and Regina frowns, looks at him.

"What?"

"To your hotel," he adds, and, oh, he doesn't need to do that. The last thing she needs is him hanging around  _there_  after she's spent the whole day  _here_. "I'll see you there."

"Don't be silly," she shakes her head, then crosses to collect her dress from last night – now in a heap on the floor, having fallen off the bed at some point during their afternoon. She bends to grasp it as she says, "I'm sure your friends want to see you. I'll be fine."

He's rising from the bed now, too (that erection is gone, she notices with a glance she mentally shames herself for being unable to resist), telling her, "I'm sure you will, but it's no trouble."

"It's pointless," she tells him, because she's sure as hell not inviting him up to her room, and so… what? He wants to take a round-trip cab ride to her hotel for shits and giggles? "A waste of your time."

Ever affable, he just shrugs, and tells her, "I rather enjoy wasting time with you. And the gentleman in me wants to be sure I see you to your door after a date."

Regina is bent over again, retrieving her stilettos, but she stands with them hooked over her

fingers and gives him a doubtful, questioning look. "I wouldn't call getting drunk, hooking up, and getting married a date," she points out, headed for the bathroom and the plastic bag still left on the counter.

Robin follows, predictably, leaning against the door jamb as she pulls out the flip-flops and then shoves dress and shoes into the bag. "What would you call it, then?" he wonders.

"A mistake," Regina mutters, tossing her contact solution and eye drops into the bag as well, and saying a little prayer that the plastic won't give to the pressure of her heels before she gets back to her hotel.

"Maybe so," he concedes, adding, "Still–" and that's when Regina spins to face him with a sigh.

"Robin, I don't need an escort," she insists, "So stop trying to make this into something romantic, and stop pushing."

That, at least, manages to shut him up.

**.::.**

Damnit.

He'd told himself not to do this. Not to put pressure on her, leastways not today. Not right now. She'd woken cranky, it seems. Back to her former prickly self, the softer, more open Regina from this afternoon firmly tucked away again. It's a bit of a disappointment – feels somewhat like one step forward and two steps back. But then they've known each other for less than twenty-four hours and she's already divulged so much of herself – an abusive marriage, a dead lover, a family fractured by disease and bad attitudes. It should come as no surprise to him that she might want some distance, some space. A quick retreat and a bit of breathing room.

So alright, okay, he'll give her that.

He'll nod and step back into the bedroom, Regina hot on his heels, cheap plastic sandals slapping against the bathroom tile. On her way to the door, she collects her phone, her purse, her charger. Double-checks for her own room key, and then finally turns to face him again.

She takes a deep breath and then tells him, "Thank you for today. It could have been a lot worse."

Her gaze is steady and open, a moment unbridled again, and so he smiles at her and nods, steps a bit more into her space and reaches out to coast his palms up and down her arms, shoulder to elbow and back. He takes care not to grasp at her, to keep his touch light.

"We'll work it all out; I promise," he tells her. "Together."

She nods, but her expression pinches. "I still don't know if this is–" An exhale and she falls silent.

"That's alright," he assures. "But I told you earlier – as long as we're married, you've got me on your side. Whether that's twelve days or twelve months."

She smiles then, a soft sort of thing without much heart in it. "You know… If I had to wake up married to someone, I'm glad it was you. You've made this whole thing less… terrible."

"I'll take 'less terrible,'" he says with a grin, a little bubble of satisfaction in his chest over having earned even that. "Coming from you, it's probably a high compliment."

Regina rolls her eyes and scoffs, but she's smiling, knows he's teasing and takes it as such, thankfully. When she catches that bottom lip in her teeth, trying to bite back her smile, his attraction for her flares up, has him asking for things he shouldn't before he can help it: "Would it be alright if I kissed my wife goodbye?"

He regrets it as soon as he says it – so much for no pushing – and even more so when her smile falters, her expression going from amused to unsure.

"I – we're not – this isn't–"

"Nevermind," he dismisses with a little shake of his head. "No problem. Forget I asked."

She looks at him for a second more, and then her smirk finds its way back, her brows lifting and falling as she surprises him with, "I didn't say no. Just… don't get any ideas."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he laughs softly and then leans in, his hand rising to cup behind her neck, fingers slipping into her hair (she hasn't bothered with any attempts to tame it since they woke, and it's wavy and loose and wonderful). Her lashes flutter shut, her tongue poking out to wet her lips, and when he kisses her, he does it gently, sweetly. Her lips are soft, and warm, and she tips her face up to ease his way, obliterating any bit of resistance he might have had. He kisses her once, twice, a third time for good measure, and then draws back only slightly, his nose bumping lightly against hers. Well. She's quite a good kisser, isn't she? He has a flash of selfishness, of appreciation for the fact that if she does decide to go through with this whole marriage business he'll have a chance to do that again, at least for show.

They linger for a moment more, her breath washing against his chin before she eases back and teases, "Do you always kiss in threes?"

Robin's lips curve, his shoulders shrug, and he reasons, "Well, one to warm up, another to appreciate, and a third for good measure." She hasn't stepped away yet, is still close enough that the bag slung over her wrist bumps against him, and so he takes another chance and leans in, pressing his lips to her forehead, and adding, "And one for the road. Are you sure I can't see you back to your hotel?"

It's not that he doesn't think she's capable, but he feels a bit odd just sending her off with a wave and see-ya-later after wedding and bedding her. But she refuses him again, predictably shaking her head and insisting (with less annoyance than before, so that's something), "I've got it. I'm just going to take a cab."

"Can I see you to the taxi at least?" he requests – a reasonable compromise, and one he's a bit more comfortable with than just pushing her out of his hotel room and letting her wander her way down.

"Robin, I'll be fine. I'm a big girl."

But he won't be, he thinks. Not if he doesn't at least see her out, so he plays a card that perhaps he shouldn't and asks her curiously, "Do you know where the elevator is?"

Her haughty expression falters a bit at that, at the realization that, no, she has no bloody clue where anything is outside his door because she has no memory of arriving here. He can see the flash of insecurity bubble up and then get pushed back down in favor of a set scowl and slightly lifted chin.

"Fine," she concedes, just a bit sulky in a way that has him forcing his mouth to stay neutral lest she think he's making fun of her. "You can walk me to the taxi stand."

Robin holds out his hand toward the door, pleased she's finally relented.

"After you, milady."

**.::.**

She'd never admit it, but she's glad he walked her to the taxi. The hotel certainly wasn't a labyrinth, but it would have taken her longer to find it by herself, and at least this way she didn't look like a lost girl wandering the halls.

She could have done without running into one of his friends in the hallway, could have done without the man's raised brows and once-over, but Robin had been quick to silence him with a look, telling him to shove off and shut up before the other guy even had a chance to speak. He'd disappeared into his room with hands raised innocently, and it had been a quiet ride down in the elevators from there, Robin slipping her phone from her fingers and double-checking that his contact information was right, sending himself a text just in case.

The wait for the taxi hadn't been terribly long, and the ride to her hotel not much longer than that. And now, finally,  _finally,_  after what seems like the longest day ever, she is back in her room.

She relaxes back against her door with a sigh and shakes her head at the ridiculousness of the last twenty-four hours. The sheer insanity that her life has become in only one day. But it can only get better from here, right? (She hopes that's the truth, but she knows better. It can always get worse.)

She only gives herself a minute to wallow – if she wants to shower, and blow out her hair, and change and be presentable in time for dinner, she doesn't have much time to waste.

First things first, she needs to resolve the headache that's beginning to throb from her blurred vision, which means a quick shower with proper conditioner, and soap that doesn't smell like a pine forest. That alone goes a long way toward making her feel like a person – like herself – again. Conditioner, and the soft notes of lychee, the slicked-clean feeling that chases her face wash, and the familiar scent of her moisturizer as she slathers it on her face after she's toweled dry.

Contacts next, finally, so she walks naked to the bedroom where she'd left her bag of shame, digging through it in an attempt to find the little case, but it's crammed with dress, and shoes, and bottles, and she comes up empty. With a sigh, she upends everything onto the mattress and then reaches for her glasses on the nightstand, slipping them on just long enough to aid her search.

She pushes through the small pile of junk on the bed, and then she stares. Heels. Dress. Contact solution. Eye drops. Her purse (she empties that too, just in case). Lipstick, a tampon, her room key and her driver's license, a few credit cards, and some cash. Breath mints.

And her cell phone.

It lights up and buzzes, a text from Robin arriving just as she reaches the conclusion:  _You left your contacts by my sink._

With a groan of irritation, Regina sits down on the bed and then flops onto her back.

So much for things not getting any worse.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm a little late this month - I had some life stuff come up this week that ate into my writing time, and I also decided about a third of the way into the chapter that I wasn't happy with it and went back and red-penned the hell out of it until it was to my liking. So that delayed me as well... If you want to be kept apprised of delays and such in the future, follow me on twitter (SomewhereApart) or tumblr (someonethatiamnot). I usually post there if something is going to be later than expected.

It's amazing the difference twenty-four hours can make.

Yesterday, Robin had been a single man and quite content to stay that way. Tonight, he's a husband foolishly hoping that the woman he's found himself married to will opt to stick it out despite the utter insanity of their arrangement (and he knows it's mad, he does, but still he hopes...). One thing hasn't changed, though, and that's the bit of trepidation with which he's approaching the evening's plans. His mates are raring to go again, planning to wolf down burgers and fries in one of the bars connected to their hotel before heading out for another night of drinking and debauchery. Same as last night, but once again, Robin finds himself less than enthused, although his reasons tonight are… different.

Last night, it had been a mild distaste for the idea of trolling the club scene with the primary goal of hooking up with someone beautiful and willing and looking for nothing more than an anonymous good time. To put it frankly, that's not his style. Sure, he's been out of the dating game for a while, but the night's plans had simply seemed lackluster. It's not that he's averse to one night stands, not really, but he enjoys the volley of flirtation, of genuine interest, of charming a woman who has intellect and personality, someone more than just a pretty face. The prospect of a night spent prowling for pretty women willing to open their legs for him had seemed foreign, and despite his insistence that the club scene just wasn't really his thing, he'd been assured that he'd just been out of the game too long. It'd be like falling off a log, Will had told him, and to tell it true, he hadn't been entirely wrong.

Regina had been easy. Not easy in the loose sense, but easy in that he'd been drawn to her immediately, had  _wanted_  to flirt, to charm, to touch and to dance. Not to appease anyone else, but for himself, for her.

The instant interest he'd found for Regina hasn't happened often for Robin, and despite the fact that, yes, he's certainly been in the midst of what would probably be referred to as a "dry spell" (two years is too long to simply claim a widower's grief, he's been told), he much prefers  _that_  – chemistry, true attraction, a woman with a bit of spice – to a simple conquest of the bedroom (or the toilet cubicle, as it were). He's not done much of sex for the sake of sex alone since his college days, but even then he'd found empty shags to be a bit on the boring side in comparison to the excitement of finally going there with a woman he liked for more than what was between her legs. And Regina, well… Regina had been anything but boring.

So, yes, he's a fan of the chase as much as the catch. A relationship man, much to Will's eternal chagrin. His friend's smug, proud grin in the elevator earlier today had come as little surprise – snaring himself a woman he didn't let go of until mid afternoon the next day would be just what Will wanted him to do. After all, this little get-Robin-properly-laid quest his mates had dragged him all the way here for had been his idea. Robin rubs his thumb over the cheap gold of his wedding band and thinks they're in for a rude awakening if they think tonight will be a repeat performance.

Tonight, his hesitation holds more weight than it had the night before.

They're still in a state of limbo – Regina's still waffling on whether she wants to commit to this not-so-little charade – but it makes no difference to Robin. He's promised to treat her as his wife if she agrees, so as far as he's concerned, until she tells him otherwise, his fidelity to her began somewhere in the middle of last night, with slurred words of promise and rings he's fairly certain he could bite a dent into. Another drunken hook-up isn't in the cards for him tonight – much to the inevitable disappointment of his friends and the likely relief of his liver. (He's certain that in his younger days he'd been able to drink twice as much and feel half as sluggish as he does right now – just one more reason he finds himself feeling a bit too old for the shenanigans he'll no doubt be party to tonight).

But hook-up or no, he's here with his mates, and he's not going to hole up in his room and miss the chance to watch them embarrass themselves as they fall all over the eligible, attractive women of Las Vegas tonight. If nothing else, his years of marriage have molded him into an excellent wingman. So while he doesn't do it with any great speed or enthusiasm, he readies himself for the evening – pulls on slacks and a presentable top, spritzes himself with cologne, tugs a flyaway bit of his hair into place. Brushes and flosses and all that.

For a moment, he stares at his wedding ring, considers taking it off. A bare hand would certainly make it easier to avoid the questions his mates would no doubt throw his way the moment they saw the ring, but leaving it in place would send a clear message of not-interested to all the women they may encounter. Or would it? He thinks of the years spent with Marian, of the sheer number of women who had seen the ring and flirted anyway. Marian had laughed off his exasperation or taunted him for the few women who'd managed to make him flush with simultaneous interest and guilt. She'd never doubted his fidelity.

He fiddles with the ring, spins it once around his finger, and frowns. What would Regina think? They're not… anything real, nothing more than a mistake gone potentially semi-permanent, but would it bother, he wonders? Will they be seeing other people during this arrangement of theirs? Things to discuss later, he supposes. Rules to set if they move forward.

But thinking of Regina reminds him of how keenly she'd wanted to have this whole thing dealt with and done with before she'd discovered the cat was out of the bag. Perhaps she'd rather keep things under wraps, in case she does choose to end them?

She should have a say in when and how they go public, he thinks, so he reaches for his phone, shoots her a text:  _Are we keeping this secret from our friends for now, or can I explain the situation?_

He's not sure he'll hear from her, knows she has plans tonight as well, but his phone buzzes less than a minute later with her response:  _What are you going to tell them?_

What, indeed?

For a moment, he stares at his phone, trying to come up with an answer, and then he decides it's just silly. If they're partners, they're partners, and this isn't his choice, it's  _theirs._

He taps the screen a few times, lifts the phone to his ear as it rings through to her.

**.::.**

She's about to head out the door (already perilously close to running late, and Kathryn certainly won't appreciate that – she's already pissed enough about the unexpected nuptials) when her phone rings.

Regina frowns. She'd expected him to text her back – had figured his answer would come in a block of text she'd have to read surreptitiously while Kathryn read her The Riot Act, Part Two over upstaging her at her own wedding. Instead, he's calling, and she's not sure if that's better or worse. Faster, maybe, but Kathryn's room is just at the end of the hall, so perhaps not fast enough.

"Thumbs broken?" she asks when she picks up the phone, irritated all over again at the whole situation, at the not knowing, at the fact that she's supposed to be relaxing in Vegas, drinking too many cocktails and getting too much sun, and instead she's about to discuss what to disclose about her  _marriage_ , of all things.

"I figured this was easier," he explains, and she  _mm_ s in acknowledgement as she slips on her heels. "I'll tell them whatever you want. Just let me know what that is."

A question for the ages, she thinks with a sigh, muttering, "Something that doesn't make me sound pathetic," as she grabs her purse and clasps it shut, swipes her keycard off the dresser and gives herself a final one-over in the mirror. The glasses she's stuck wearing make her frown. "Just tell them…" she tells him (herself, really, staring into her own eyes as she speaks), "Tell them you got married, and you might have to stay that way. For…" She looks away, exhales heavily, "reasons that are none of their damn business."

He chuckles, the sound warm and appealing, even through the telephone. For a moment, she wishes she was still holed up in a room with him and not about to face a half-dozen friends and acquaintances who'll be judging her before she even walks in the door. But that's silly – wanting to be with him. He's practically a stranger, husband or not.

And she's going to have to face the world eventually. It might as well be tonight.

"Alright," he agrees, and she wonders when he'll stop this – the unflappability, the constant agreeableness. Nobody is this unruffled, not for real. In two days, he's going to realize how insane this all is, and call her pleading to back out of the whole deal (thank God she managed to get in touch with Zelena before she actually got around to calling Mother – there's still a little time for them to all come to their senses). But for now, he's telling her, "And for the record, you're not pathetic. It may be a bit unorthodox, staying married, but it's our choice. We'll make it for our own reasons, and anyone else's opinions on the subject don't matter one iota."

Her lips curve softly, fingers stilling on the door handle, poised to leave the safety of her relative solitude for the harsh judgment of the rest of the wedding party and friends.

"If only that were true," she mutters, and then she turns that handle, steps out into the hallway, one hand still clutching Robin to her ear. Every step she takes has her stomach twisting into tighter knots, her knees feeling a bit more like wobbly jello, but she straightens her spine and eases her stride – one mustn't show fear, anxiety or discomfort. A lesson she'd had drilled into her plenty of times as a child and then a trophy wife. (She swallows heavily at that last thought – of Leo, of all of it, maybe this is a terrible idea, maybe they shouldn't stay married, she doesn't want to be anyone's  _wife_  ever again.)

"Have a good time tonight, darling," he tells her, and she thinks he means it. His voice is soft, kind.

"Not likely," she mutters, "And stop calling me that. I'm not your darling."

"We're married," he reminds her. "And if we stay that way, people will have to believe that we're married."

"Right. Call me that."

It frays her nerves even more than they've already unraveled, but Robin is ever reassuring: "It'll all work out. And if tonight is miserable, and you need a rescue, you know my number."

"You'd come get me?" she asks him, but she knows the answer already. Of course he would. Part of his proving to her how wonderful marriage can be.

"I'd hop in a cab the minute you called," he assures, and she wonders how it is that this man who has thrown her life into such turmoil can also make her feel like the ground is steady beneath her with just a few words. Is she really that starved for someone to make her a priority? She likes to think no – Regina Mills doesn't need any sort of White Knight. But still, the gesture is appreciated.

He's talking again, saying, "Unless that's me crowding you while you mull over your decision. In which case, I'll simply ask if maybe I'll see you before we all head home this weekend?"

"Yeah, yes, of course," she murmurs into the phone, spanning the space between her room and Kathryn's in almost no time at all. "You do have my contacts, after all. And frankly, these glasses don't really go with most of what I packed."

"Well, that simply won't do, will it?" Robin teases. "Perhaps dinner, or lunch tomorrow. I owe the bride-to-be an apology meal," he reminds, and Regina smirks, loitering in the hallway to finish their conversation.

"I'll let her know," Regina tells him, "and let you know what she says. Are you going out tonight?" she asks needlessly, because of course he is, and he tells her as much, "Well, far be it for me to tell you what to do, but I'd advise against drinking so much you get married a  _second_  time. The whole sister-wives thing isn't really my style."

He laughs again, and Regina feels her lips curve automatically in answer.

"Technically, it would be my third marriage," he points out, and yes, of course, the wife he lost. "But I plan on being relatively sober tonight. And at present, I'm a married man. I don't cheat."

What a novelty, she thinks bitterly, though what she says is, "Much appreciated. Goodnight, Robin."

"Goodnight, Regina," he tells her, and then she's ending the call, taking a deep breath, and knocking on Kathryn's door.

Time to face the music.

The sour-faced, clearly irritated music. Kathryn opens the door with a scowl, gives Regina a once-over and huffs, like just the sight of her is enough to rekindle her rage.

"Married. You got  _married._ "

Regina sighs and strolls past her, reminding, "We've been over this."

"Yes, I know, but I'm still trying to figure out what made you think it was a good idea to get  _married_ ," Kathryn huffs again as she shuts the door behind her.

Regina frowns and turns to face her, hands on her hips, head tilted to the side as she levels, "Maybe it was the same thing that made  _you_  think it was a good idea to let me leave the club  _that drunk_  with a stranger?"

The room looks like a bomb went off – discarded dresses strewn across the head of the bed, rumpled sheets bunched under where Ruby is sprawled near the foot with her cell phone gripped loosely in hand. She gives Regina a wave as she enters, but never looks up from her screen.

There's a small pile of makeup and velcro rollers on the table next to Emma's propped up, stiletto-heeled feet, and Regina takes a moment to wonder how she manages to walk in heels quite  _that_  tall when she's hardly ever seen the blonde wear anything but flats or thick-heeled boots before this weekend.

At least Emma deigns to greet her, even if it's with a smirking, "Hey, married lady," that has Regina glaring so hard and so swiftly that she manages to nearly trip over one of the at least five unmatched heels littering the space between the door and the wardrobe. As she kicks the offender (lipstick red patent leather – probably Ruby's discard, she thinks) out of her path, Regina is reminded once again why she chose not to share her room this weekend. There's very little relaxing about mess.

"In her defense," Emma speaks up, "The bride-to-be isn't really in charge of keeping the group together."

Dark eyes narrow on the other blonde. That's true. Their little deal to check in before anyone left had put Emma in charge of head-counting. "You're right, Ms. Swan. That was  _your_  job, wasn't it?"

Emma shrugs, reaching for her own phone as she declares, "It's Vegas! I thought you should loosen up and have a good time."

"And you did," Ruby points out, fingers flying furiously over her cell phone screen now, but she pauses to lift one and give it a celebratory little twirl. "Yay!"

Not yay, Regina thinks. She doesn't even remember most of the good time she managed to have, and what she does remember – today, this afternoon, this whole mess – still has punches of adrenaline sending her stomach into alternate bursts of heat and cold. But she doesn't want to admit that – that she can't remember getting married, doesn't remember hooking up – so she ignores Ruby and keeps her attention on Emma for now.

"What if he'd been a serial killer?" she challenges, despite the fact that Robin is the furthest thing from.

"He was a nice guy," Emma excuses with a wave of her hand, and Regina scoffs, finally settling herself onto a corner of the bed near Ruby's feet.

"Because nobody's ever said  _that_  about a serial killer," Regina retorts and Emma rolls her eyes, hard.

"Oh, come off it, Ms. Mills," she drawls, an imitation of Regina more spot-on than she'd ever admit. "I know people, okay? I have good instincts – it's sort of my job, remember? That guy is a puppy dog. And besides, I saw you leave, I knew who you were with. And I was talking to one of his friends when you tried to give us all the slip, so I got Robin's name, his cell, his room number... Just as good as a check-in."

"Well, thank you for caring," Regina bites, lacing the words with sarcasm despite the fact that they actually do make her feel a little less irked over the fact that nobody put in much effort to figure out where she'd gone last night or this morning.

"You're welcome," Emma replies, unaffected by Regina's bite, before continuing, "I'm not your mom. You wanna sleep with hot men in Vegas, I'm sure as hell not gonna stop you. Envy you, maybe, but not stop you."

"You could've slept with a hot man in Vegas," Ruby points out, shrugging her shoulders and crossing her ankles, managing to almost kick Regina in the arm as she bends at the knees, semi-oblivious to the world around her. "Peter says August is really into you."

Regina turns to the younger girl with a frown. "Who the hell is Peter?"

"He's the bit of tall, dark and handsome that Red over there went home with last night, the brazen hussy," Emma teases, and Ruby scoffs dramatically, before reaching for the nearest thing she can find (one of those rumpled dresses) and lobbing it in Emma's direction. It doesn't even come close to hitting her.

"You remember Peter," Ruby grunts as she flips onto her back. "Nice smile, dark hair, kinda scruffy. Friends with your new husband."

"Do  _not_  call him that," Regina tells her sharply, hearing the term from anyone other than herself or Robin sending an immediate lance of panic through her. Oh, God, she can't do this – they can't do this – be married – be husband and wife – she doesn't want––

 _Breathe, Regina_ , she thinks.  _Just breathe, deep breaths_ …

"Well, what are we supposed to call him, Regina?" Kathryn bites from where she's been leaning against the wall looking steamed. "Mr. Mills?"

 _Regina Mills-Locksley_  flashes into her mind, and she curls her hands into fists and breathes.

"You don't have to call him anything," she says, pleased that her voice is even and calm and not in any way indicative of her suddenly rising anxiety.

"Well, I'm going to need to know what to put on his placecard  _at my wedding_ ," she points out, shaking her head, exasperation coloring her voice as she reminds once again, "I'm getting married in one week Regina. One week, and you got married."

"Oh for God's sake, it's not like I planned it!" Regina shoots back, her temper finally wearing dangerously thin. "You think I wanted this? To be married ag–" She bites down on the  _again_ , because she's fairly certain that Ruby at least has no idea she was ever married, and she'd like to keep it that way. "To be married to some man I don't even know? I don't like this any more than you do."

"Then get un-married!" Kathryn argues. "Quickly and quietly, and–"

"I told my mother," Regina reminds her, irritation making her temples start to throb (or maybe that's some residual hangover, it's hard to say at this point). "Who told everyone else. Even if we annulled tomorrow, my drunken Vegas wedding would still be a topic of conversation at your wedding. Mother would never pass up an opportunity to humiliate me in front of the entire family."

"But you're staying with him," Kathryn points out, and yes, there's that. "Have you gone absolutely crazy?"

Yes. Yes, she has.

"I'm fairly certain my mother thinks this is… real," Regina explains. "She called  _Zelena_  for information, and she wouldn't do that if she knew the truth. The only thing that is saving any of my pride is that she thinks I've been dating someone behind her back, not that I got so drunk I couldn't remember the name of the guy I apparently made a lifetime commitment to in order to prove a point."

"What now?" Emma pipes up, interested. Shit. She hadn't meant to say that last part...

"Nothing. Forget it," Regina dismisses, shaking her head and refocusing on the more important, slightly-less-mortifying parts of the conversation here. "Kathryn, I'm sorry, okay? But I need this. I will do everything I can to make sure next weekend is all about you and Frederick, and not me and Robin. But please, help me out here. You know I will never live this down if she finds out the truth."

Kathryn's frown never fades, just twists into more of a thoughtful scowl, her fingers squeezing at her biceps and then releasing as she blows out a heavy sigh.

"What's your story?" she asks, resigned, and Regina feels relief flood her.

"Thank you," she breathes, "Thank you so much." And then Regina begins to tell their manufactured tale: "We met last summer..."

**.::.**

In the end, Robin leaves the ring in place.

If he's honest, he has to admit there's something comforting about the sight of it. He'd worn his ring for a year after Marian passed, has only in recent months moved it from his wallet to the box of her jewelry tucked away in their closet – his closet. The baby steps of moving on, moving forward. But it looks right, feels right, a ring on his finger. Even if it's not hers, there's something normal about the glint of metal from his left hand.

There's something normal about being a husband to a wife, about not being alone. ( _Don't get too attached,_  he tells himself.  _She could still back out, and even if she doesn't, it's only for a year. It's not a lifetime with a perfectly-matched partner, just a year with a woman who is beautiful and complex and interesting. Just a very long date, with a very clear end._ )

And these aren't thoughts that will do him any good tonight, so he gives himself a little mental shake and raps twice on the door to John's room.

It opens immediately, Will on the other side of it, a wide grin spreading on his face as he steps aside to gesture Robin in with a gallantly outstretched arm. There's a glass of amber liquid in his hand – it seems they've already started on the minibar. In fact, August is standing in front of it right now, lifting an empty glass to Robin in place of a hello before ducking in to retrieve something.

"The man of the hour!" Will announces, dragging Robin into the room and shoving him toward the empty spot on the couch next to Peter. "Take your place on the Conquistador's Couch next to this pathetic tosser."

Robin shakes his head with a low chuckle. Typical. You'd think he won a medal or cured cancer, not managed to get a woman into bed.

"Alright, alright," he waves off, tilting his head at John where he's parked on the chaise that sticks out the other end of the sofa. "This mean you got lucky as well?" he asks, getting a scoffed  _I wish_ , from John, and absolutely nothing from where Peter sits nearby with his nose practically in his cell phone.

But Will's not finished yet, has barely even begun, waxing poetic as he opines, "When you disappeared last night, I wasn't sure if you'd got lucky or if you'd struck out and used it as an excuse to sneak out on all us gents, but then I saw you and your, uh,  _lady friend_ ," he adds a wink and Robin feels oddly annoyed by the whole thing – by the idea of Regina so clearly framed as a conquest, "in the elevator today, and my friend, I could not be more proud."

"Alright, that's enough," Robin insists mildly. "Don't make such a bloody show of it. I met a woman, that's all."

Sort of. Not really. Not in the slightest, but it's enough for the moment. They'll get to the truth of things soon enough, he's sure.

"Oh, let him have his fun," August excuses, handing Robin a drink – rum by the sniff of it, so they've clearly polished off the mini bottles of whiskey and vodka – before perching on the arm of the couch and slinging an arm around Robin's shoulder with an easy smile. "You're moving on; it's good. Healthy."

"August–"

"I mean it, man," August tells him with a fair bit of sympathy and complete sincerity. "It's been two years. That's plenty of time to honor her memory. She'd want you to have a little fun."

Robin's heart clenches dully at the sentiment, a small smile twitching at his lips. She would, he supposes. And if anyone would know, it's August. They've all known each other since their Berkeley days, he and August and Marian and John. And while he and John had been fast friends, and he and Marian had eventually fallen into a love affair the likes of which he doubts he'll ever experience again, it was August that Marian had been closest with. Thick as thieves, the two of them, the best of friends. If there's any of their crew who's suffered the loss of Marian as keenly as Robin and Roland have, it's August.

And he's right, it was time to move on, and she'd want him to – he is, he has. Even before today. He hasn't been avoiding love, just… waiting on it. And now, it seems, he'll be waiting a bit longer.

"Yes, well," he says, taking a breath and confessing, "I had a bit more than that."

August's brow furrows and Robin shifts his drink to his left hand, taking a long sip that leaves the gold on his hand in plain, eye-level view, and watching comprehension dawn on the other man's face.

"Bloody hell, Robin, is that a wedding ring?" Will demands, reaching for Robin's wrist and yanking, managing to slosh overpriced liquor onto Robin's hand and shoes.

He swaps hands again with a hum of annoyance, shaking off his wet hand and confirming, "It is."

"You married her?" John questions, bushy brows nearly to his hairline in shock. Peter has finally looked up from his phone, but he looks oddly… unsurprised by the turn of events.

"It seems that way, yes."

"Holy shit," August mutters, his arm dropping from around Robin and reaching out to whack Peter on the back of the head. "Will you quit texting that girl and get up to speed? Robin got  _married_."

"Yeah, I, uh, I know," Peter admits, waggling the phone in his hand. "Ruby found out this morning."

Ah. Well, that explains that. It seems he's not the only one who had a… successful evening.

"You've known all bloody day?" Will questions, throwing his hands up. "Bloody traitor, you are. We've been together since lunch."

Peter shrugs a shoulder and says simply, "Not my business to tell," and Robin finds himself suddenly grateful for the man's discretion. They're not terribly close, he and Peter, but it seems he can count on him regardless.

"Thank you," he says, and Peter nods – then looks back down as his phone pings softly.

"The hell it wasn't," Will argues, but John cuts him off.

"Jesus, brother, we said you should find a pretty girl, not a  _wife_ ," he says, still disbelieving, but well, who can blame the man? He ignores Robin's,  _It seems I found both_ , and asks, "Were you even remotely sober at the time?"

"Blackout drunk, actually," Robin confirms, and John chuckles, shaking his head, amusement beginning to overtake his surprise. "Woke up this morning completely starkers, criminally hungover, and married."

"Actually married?" Will questions. "You didn't just buy rings and have a laugh?"

"Very much married," Robin tells him. "We've got the paperwork to prove it."

"Fuck," August laughs, the first one to truly break, and soon they're all guffawing, all his mates, even Peter, although he's still eyeing Robin like he knows more than he's letting on to the others, his mirth a bit more contained. So he must know then – the rest of the bombshell revelation that Robin's been holding back.

"Well done, brother," John taunts him. "You never do like to do things half way, huh?"

"Maybe his chivalrous side came out and insisted if he was going to bed her, he'd best wed her, too," Will teases, and Robin lets them take the piss out of him for a minute, knowing it's going to go from good-natured ribbing to something a bit less playful in a moment.

"You going to register at Pottery Barn and get some free stuff before you fix this hilarious little blunder?" August questions, grinning, shoulders still shaking as he chuckles. "Because I could use some new sheets, y'know, if you feel like sharing the wealth."

"We're not," Robin tells them, taking a swallow of rum and wishing desperately it was whisky.

"Yeah, I'm kidding," August tells him, but then he seems to notice that Robin is  _not_ , and he double-takes, asking, "Wait – you're not what?"

"Not fixing it," Robin confirms. Quick and strong, like ripping off a Band-Aid. "We're staying married."

Laughter stops abruptly.

Robin lifts his drink for another sip and sneaks a glance at Peter, who is smirking knowingly.

"You're… what?" Will questions, echoed swiftly by John's  _Robin, you're joking_. August is just looking at him like he's grown a second head out the side of the first one.

"We're staying married, most likely," Robin repeats. "For a while, anyway."

"Why?" August asks, flabberghasted.

"That is between me and her," Robin says carefully, unsurprised when the answer doesn't fly.

"Bullshit," John argues immediately, sitting forward on the couch. "We're your best friends; you've known this chick for less than a day. She doesn't get secret status. What's going on?"

"She's my wife, so yes she does," Robin argues calmly. "What's going on is I met a woman, married her, and, unless she changes her mind in the next day or two, it's a commitment I'm going to honor for the foreseeable future."

They're all looking at him like he's two-headed now, August and John and Will. Everyone except Peter who is back to texting Ruby (Robin remembers her vaguely, and only because she'd had a streak of red dyed into her otherwise dark hair) like this is old news and unimportant.

"There's gotta be more to it than that," August says, shaking his head. "I mean, I know you're a hopeless romantic, but even you wouldn't just decide to stay married to a stranger because of vows you made after a few too many tequila shots."

"Robin, seriously," John encourages, the very picture of a concerned best friend. One who, to be honest, probably is owed a bit more consideration than a woman he's known less than a day, he's not wrong about that. But as he also pointed out, Robin doesn't do things in halves, least of all marriage. Her secrets are safe with him, at least for now. "What is this?"

"There are reasons," Robin tells them, "But she'd like them to stay private for now."

"Dump her," Will declares, point-blank, and Robin shoots him a hard look.

"Excuse me?"

"She's gonna take every bloody penny–"

"She doesn't know I have any pennies," Robin dismisses, shaking his head at the notion. "In fact, I'm pretty sure she thinks she's quite a bit better off than I am. She's not a gold-digger. Staying married wasn't even her idea; it was mine."

"It was  _yours?_ " John questions. "Why the hell would you–"

"Is she in trouble?" August asks, grabbing Robin's shoulder and turning him in his direction slightly. "I know you, Robin, and I know how you like to help people in need, but if she's mixed up in some sort of–"

"She's not. It's nothing like that."

"Then why won't you–"

"For fuck's sake," Peter mutters beside him, and then he's saying, "Her mom's a massive bitch, and Regina called her when they were drunk and told her they got married, so now they're sticking with it so she won't be mortified at her cousin's wedding next week."

So much for things not being his to tell, Robin thinks with a clench of his jaw and a tightening of his fingers around his glass.

"What part of 'she'd prefer them to stay private' was unclear?" Robin asks him, Peter tumbling back down several notches on the list of people he's grateful for.

"She told  _you_  that, not me," Peter shrugs. "Now you get to keep your word, and these guys can lay off."

"A bitchy mother?" John asks, "That's it?"

"Yes, that's it," Robin confirms with a sigh, because that's all they need to bloody know. More than they need to bloody know. "I'm just doing her a favor for a few months. She lives an hour away, we're not even going to live together. It'll hardly make a difference in either of our lives. We'll get divorced in a year, no harm no foul."

"Awfully big favor for someone you just met," John points out.

"I…" Well, yes. It is. Logically, he knows that, but there's much about how he feels for Regina that isn't logical. So much of today has simply been felt in his guts, in his bones. So he settles on, "I know," and then, "I just feel for her, is all."

"You like her," August surmises, his statement certain and steady.

"It's only a year."

"That's not what I said," the other man points out, and no, he didn't, and fuck. He and August lock eyes for a moment, and hold, and what Robin sees there makes his stomach twist nervously. He's got that look, like he knows, a sort of quiet challenge: You're in too deep already.

"And when the year's up, what then, mate?" Will wonders.

"Divorce," Robin answers with a shrug, shifting his attention away from August. "Amicable, agreed upon far, far in advance, no-strings divorce."

For thirty blessed seconds, there's silence, as if all the other men are trying to come up with an argument, or perhaps decide if it's even worth attempting one.

When the silence finally breaks, it's Will: "So, will you get to keep sleeping with her, then?"

Robin drops his head into his free hand with a groan.

It's going to be a long night.

**.::.**

They end up at another club – Regina, and Kathryn, and Emma, and Ruby, and Elsa, and Mary Margaret. Another night of loud music, thumping bass that vibrates in Regina's chest, rattling the already delicate composure the day has left her with.

There are men swarming, free drinks arriving at their table, but she refuses all of them. After last night, she's not taking any chances. She drinks seltzer with lime, sips it slowly, and doesn't wander from the table. She'll be home base tonight, if for no other reason than it means that every time Kathryn returns to the table, she's there. The dutiful bridesmaid instead of the black sheep of the bunch.

Of course, it also means that every once in a while, she gets stuck like this. Sitting at the table with Mary Margaret of all people. She likes the other brunette just fine, she supposes – at least she does when she's not being an insufferable ray of hopeful sunshine. Which is usually, come to think of it, so maybe she doesn't like her all that much after all. She's certainly not in the mood for a meeting with the Hope Commission tonight.

But it seems she's going to have one anyway, and it doesn't help in the slightest that Regina is stone cold sober while Mary Margaret has already had three Appletinis.

Liquor makes her even chattier than usual, and of course what she wants to talk about is Regina and her sudden and inconvenient marriage.

"I think it's kind of romantic," she says with the saccharine sweetness of the optimistic and tipsy.

"You would," Regina mutters, twirling her straw and watching Emma and Elsa shimmy together on the dance floor not far away. It seems the younger blonde managed to rescue the older from Mr. Tall Dark and Handsy who'd dragged her out to the dance floor in the first place.

"You don't?" Mary Margaret questions, and Regina sighs and shuts her eyes against the aura-inducing laser light show that has just picked up from the DJ area to the ceiling. This place is really not her speed.

"I don't find much romance in screwing someone in a bar bathroom and then making it official," Regina points out, starting to wish she'd opted for something alcoholic in her drink after all.

"Not that part, maybe," the other woman concedes, "But what if you were meant to meet this man? What if you were meant to marry him?" Regina lets her disdain for such childish notions be made perfectly clear by the slow rise of one arched eyebrow. "Maybe it's not a conventional beginning, but some love stories start in unexpected places. Just look at me and David."

"Yes, well," Regina scoffs. "We can't all end up the maid of honor at our husband's ex-fiancée's wedding, now can we?"

"Stranger things have happened," Mary Margaret reasons. "Like you marrying a handsome Englishman in Vegas."

"Are you two still talking about that?" Emma asks breathlessly as she and Elsa sidle up to the table. It's about damn time.

"Unfortunately, yes," Regina mutters, sipping at her seltzer again (it's mostly ice now).

"Give her a break," Emma tells Mary Margaret, and Regina can't even bring herself to be bothered by the excess of sympathy she can see in Emma (the blonde's particular blasé brand of it, anyway). She's too grateful for the sentiment.

Mary Margaret sighs good-naturedly, and shrugs her shoulders. "Fine, fine. But I still think it could be good for you. Don't tell Kathryn, though. As maid of honor, I think I'm honor-bound to scold you for stealing her spotlight."

Regina rolls her eyes so hard it hurts (it doesn't take much, her head is already starting to pulse in time to the music, her eyes particularly achy).

"I think we should declare this table a scold-free zone," Elsa declares, fiddling with her long braid, twisting it up into a coil to keep it off her neck in the thick, humid air of the dance floor's close proximity. Despite the thin material of her ice-blue, almost-too-short dress, she's dewy with sweat.

"Even better, a marriage-free zone," Emma concurs, and Regina lifts her empty glass wearily.

"Hear-hear," she cheers, sucking at her straw again (it's slurps hollowly, nothing but ice-melt left in the bottom).

"And I also think you need a refill," Elsa decides, before noticing Mary Margaret's empty glass and amending to, "Both of you. What's your poison?"

"Same, please," Mary Margaret insists with a smile, plucking the apple garnish from the rim of her glass and biting into it.

Emma looks between her and Regina, then turns her body toward Elsa's slightly, suggesting, "Hey, how about you and Mary Margaret go to the bar together and get those drinks? You're gonna need more than two hands to carry all four, right?"

Elsa's smile is knowing and a little mischievous, her head bobbing as she says, "I think that sounds like a great idea. Regina, what do you want?"

"Another of these," she sighs. "Seltzer with lime. No booze."

Thankfully, Mary Margaret takes the invitation happily, and in less than a minute she and Elsa are disappearing into the crowd, fingers linked, and Emma is sliding into one of the empty chairs.

"She means well, you know," Emma excuses and Regina nods, propping her elbows on the table and digging her thumbs into her temples, squeezing her eyes shut.

"I know," she mutters, loud enough to be heard over the music, but just barely. "It's just been a very, very long day."

"Sounds like, what with the proposing to a man and all."

Regina cracks one eye open to glare at her. "Excuse me?"

"You asked him."

"Did I?" Regina drawls, even though, yes, she's pretty sure she had. Almost certain. Nearly positive. That's one memory that is becoming clearer and clearer, the moment of truth that had swung them from a drunken hook-up to a lifetime commitment. And the fact that it was  _her_ , the fact that despite her utter disdain for marriage, she'd managed to fall into one again and at her own behest, has her mortified.

"You said it earlier, to Kathryn," Emma reminds, and damnit, it had been too much to hope she'd have forgotten that. Emma's nothing if not observant. "You did it to prove a point. You proposed, didn't you?"

"If you tell anyone, I will end you," Regina mutters darkly, before finally yanking her glasses off with a growl of frustration. They're just making things worse tonight, just making her head throb even more, and maybe it'll be better to exist in this hazy world where she can't see much of anything clearly. As she tucks them into her clutch carefully, saying a prayer that they won't scratch, she reminds, "And I thought this was a marriage-free table."

"True, true," Emma agrees, relaxing back into her chair a little more as she changes the subject. "So… this place…"

"Is terrible?" Regina finishes, and Emma chuckles.

"Yeah," the blonde agrees. "This is the last time we let the baby of the group pick the venue."

Regina bobs her head, swearing, "This is the last time I socialize with anyone under thirty for more than twenty-four hours straight."

"I'm under thirty," Emma points out.

"You're tolerable."

"High praise, coming from you," the blonde taunts, and then her brows are rising, her lips parting as her mouth drops open slightly. Regina barely has time to turn her head in order to search out whatever has drawn the reaction before she's hearing an all-too-familiar voice.

"We have to stop meeting like this," he says, loud enough to be heard over the noise and Regina gapes, then squints, trying to bring him into something resembling proper focus.

"Robin?"

**.::.**

They're halfway across the strip from where they had planned to be, at a club Peter had insisted he'd heard good things about, when August groans, "For fuck's sake, man, tell me you didn't," and Robin looks over to find him glaring at Peter.

"He didn't what?" Robin inquires, off Peter's attempt at an innocent shrug, and August just points.

He sees the blonde first, her face almost blue in the shifting light of the club, hair gone silvery with it. She looks almost familiar, and he figures out why when August adds, "I believe that's your wife in the red dress."

Robin's eyes widen at the realization that yes, it just might be. The blonde is one of the women from Regina's party, the one August had spent the night chatting up, and occupying one of the other empty chairs at her table, with her back to Robin, is Regina.

She's in a dress that might be red, but could be brown, or maybe even green, the kaleidoscope of colors in the air makes it hard to tell. Her hair is down, curling in waves a bit too refined to be caused by the heat of the club (which is in no way as amazing as Peter had made it out to be, but well, his true motives seem to have been revealed now, have they not?).

John gives a little groan beside him and tells Peter, "You did not drag us down to this place just to meet up with that girl, did you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Peter lies, stuffing his hands into his pockets and shrugging like that's not exactly what he did. Tosser.

Robin feels his annoyance flare – he'd wanted to give Regina space, time, but it seems he's in for another night of socializing with her friends. At the very least, he owes it to her to let her know he's here, so he heaves a sigh and heads toward her, his mates following behind.

The blonde sees him first, and the fact that she recognizes him when he only just recalled her leaves Robin a little impressed. And then Regina is turning, a frown on her face, and her eyes give the telltale pinched squint of the half-blind. He has an irrational moment of regret over not needlessly pocketing her contacts for the night out.

"We have to stop meeting like this," he tells her, hoping to turn that frown into a smile. It doesn't work, she just scowls harder, squints tighter.

"Robin?" Her voice is all startled disbelief, and well, why wouldn't it be? He's not supposed to be here.

He nods, watching her look beyond him to the others, then back at his face. Robin jerks a thumb in Peter's direction, and explains, "Romeo over here led us to this place under false pretenses so he could flirt with Ruby in person and save on his data plan or some such nonsense."

Her dark eyes roll heavenward, her head shaking and she gestures out toward the mass of writhing bodies. "Good luck finding her," she shouts to Peter over the noise that has suddenly gone particularly loud and raucous. Lord, he hates techno music. "She and Kathryn disappeared about half an hour ago, and I haven't seen them since."

August shifts beside him, starts to make his way around Regina toward her friend (the other direction is blocked by John and Peter and Will), and Robin watches as Regina straightens as he passes behind her. Knowing everything he does, he wonders if it's coincidence, discomfort or defense, and finds himself reaching out a hand to settle on her shoulder. Her gaze flicks to him, and what he sees there can only be described as "caught." She looks away suddenly, sucks in a breath, and she hasn't smiled even slightly since he arrived, he realizes.

He shouldn't be here; he's crowding her. He should leave her be. So he leans in close enough to be able to speak to her in reasonable tones, and says, "We can go, if you want. Peter can find Ruby, and we'll fuck off to another table. Leave you alone for the night."

But Regina shakes her head, murmurs something he can't quite make out, but thinks may have been, "It's fine."

And then Will, of course it's bloody Will, has to go and open his mouth and sour things, asking him, "So are you going to introduce us to the new bride, mate?"

His hand is still on Regina's shoulder, but it wouldn't have mattered, he'd have seen the way she stiffens again clear as day, her lips pressing together. She's uncomfortable, and this is a terrible idea.

"You've met," Robin reminds him.

"Ah, but that was before she was Mrs. Locksley," Will reasons with a jovial smile that Regina does not return.

Instead, she sucks in a deep breath, her expression flickering toward something that would be mutinous if it wasn't so underscored with panic, one hand lifting, finger pointed, but she bites back whatever she was going to say and balls her hand into a fist, letting it plunk down onto the table again with a shake of her head, and no, nope. This is not how this evening will go for her.

Robin steps between her and Will, shouting over the music, "Don't start on her." Except the music has just dropped suddenly, so his warning is awkwardly loud around their table. He pulls his voice down a decibel or two as he continues sternly, "You can rag me all you want, but you leave her out of it tonight. It's been a long day, alright?"

Will lifts his brows, looking equal parts annoyed and put-out, his hands lifting to proclaim his innocence as he grumbles, "Bloody hell, mate. Fine. I'm gonna go get a drink."

He stalks off, tension lingering in his wake, and Robin turns back to find Regina looking at him curiously.

"Sorry," he soothes, his hand a gentle weight against her arm again (her skin is warm under his touch). She gives him a tight smile, and then winces slightly, her head tilting, and he wonders if some of her discomfort isn't entirely unrelated to the awkwardness of their whole situation.

Before he can open his mouth to ask, there are more bodies crowding around their table, two of the women Robin recognizes from the night before, a blonde who gives a rather forced smile to August and a more genuine, if bewildered, one to everyone else, and a brunette who simply lifts her brows at Regina, failing miserably at her attempt to tamp down a smile.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," she greets, settling a drink in front of Regina, something clear and bubbly, while the blonde hands off one of her drinks to the one August is interested in (for the life of him, he still can't remember her name).

"I think we're going to need another table," the newly-arrived blonde suggests, scanning the room for options and bracing herself with one hand on the other blonde's shoulders as she pushes up onto her tiptoes to try to get a better view. Not much good it'll do her with all these tall fellows around.

"Emma, why don't you go help Peter find Ruby, and let Kathryn know we have company," Regina suggests, and yes! Emma! That had been her name. The one who'd been sitting here with Regina is Emma, and the other blonde is something else, similar, something else that starts with an E.

"Sure," Emma agrees, taking a long swig of her drink, then sliding off her stool (the other blonde immediately taking her place) and gesturing to Peter. "Into the fray."

"You need another pair of eyes?" August offers, but Emma shakes her head.

 _Subtle_ , Robin thinks wryly with a smirk.

"The fewer people I have to keep track of out there, the better," she reasons, and then she's pulling Peter away by the hand, and there's ever so slightly more room to breathe.

The brunette kicks up conversation, beckons John closer to the table and asks him and August what brought them here tonight. Robin takes their distraction as an opportunity to ask Regina quietly if she's truly alright with them staying.

"I said it's fine," she tells him, annoyance tingeing her voice as she swipes her drink from the table and draws a long pull from the straw. Her voice is low enough that he has to lean in to hear her, even with her body now spun fully toward his in her chair. "What did you tell them?"

Robin sighs, and says, "I told them we were married and likely going to stay that way for a while, for reasons that were ours to know." And then admits, "Peter told them everything Ruby had told him."

Air whooshes out of her as she shakes her head, her expression going immediately and intensely uneasy, gaze flicking sideways toward the others without landing on them fully. One hand lifts and drags through her hair, and he thinks he detects a hint of a tremble in her lip, or it could just be the swirling, shifting lights playing tricks on him.

"Great," she grinds out. "Just fucking great."

When Peter gets back, he thinks he might punch him square in the nose for that reaction alone.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, fighting the urge to settle his palms on her knees (they're just an inch away from him, her whole body facing his way now, but it seems a bit too intimate, he's not sure quite where their boundaries lie). He grips the backing of her chair more tightly instead, his thumb wedged between it and her shoulder now.

"This is–" she begins, breaking off in a sharp exhale, turning her face to the side slightly, further out of view of the others (he glances over for a moment and finds August watching them). She's grimacing again, one hand rising to press fingertips hard against her temple, and there's an unsteadiness to her voice that guts him as she admits, "My head is pounding, and this place is atrocious, and I am  _humiliated_. I just want to go home."

Well, alright then.

"Do you want to finish your drink, or leave it?" he asks her plainly.

**.::.**

Regina blinks, tightens her grip on her drink for a moment, and stares at him, anxiety a steady river rushing through her veins (too many people, too much noise, too much pressure, they know everything, she hates this, hates it, she just needs a minute to think and some liquor, God, she needs a drink).

He means it, she realizes. He will take her, right now, if she wants to go. The relief of it has her chest loosening enough to draw a comfortable breath, but she shakes her head.

"I can't leave Kathryn here again," she reasons, shifting her leg under the guise of repositioning until his fingers brush against her kneecap. They press there, and linger, his knuckles against her patella, little more than a point of contact, but he maintains it subtly. "Especially not when she knows it's not because I've met some really fabulous guy I want to go home with."

"I'm not sure whether I should be flattered or offended," he teases lightly, and she thinks he smiles, but with the lights and her eyes, it's hard to tell for sure. She should put her glasses back on, but she's grown used to him in soft focus now.

"Ha ha," she drawls, taking another swig of her drink in the vain hope that the coolness and bubbles will do something to ease her headache.

"Do you want to go someplace quieter?" he asks her, "Maybe just for a little while. That way you're not bailing, but you get a bit of a break. You look miserable, love."

Quieter sounds marvelous, and she wants to say yes, is even considering it, but then Emma is back, and Kathryn with her, Ruby nowhere to be found. (Probably a good thing, because if Regina had to lay eyes on that puppy-eyed blabbermouth she's almost certainly making out with somewhere on the dance floor, she might char him to a crisp with the force of her glare. What right does he think he has to share her personal business?)

"Well, isn't this a surprise," Kathryn greets their new arrivals with thinly veiled annoyance. Wonderful.

"I'm going to go buy a round," John offers, trying to soothe the ruffled feathers the whole situation has caused everyone. He smiles at Kathryn, all warm and friendly, and asks, "What would the bride-to-be like?"

"Kamikazes," Kathryn tells him, and then Robin is lacing his fingers with Regina's and squeezing.

"We're going to go for a walk," he calls over to Kathryn. "But I promise to return her to you this time."

Kathryn lifts her brows. "I'll believe that when I see it."

"Prepare to believe," he says, and then he's murmuring to Regina, "Come on, just for a few minutes."

And while she's not one to be led, or bossed around, she wants quiet, so desperately wants quiet that she nods and slips from her stool, keeping her drink firmly in hand as she follows Robin away from the table. They skirt the perimeter of the club, headed further and further from the speakers, until they approach the entrance of a hallway with a restroom sign above it.

Seriously? The bathrooms? (She regrets bringing her drink with her now.)

They're single-occupancy rooms again, each one no more than a stall really, with a communal sink at the other end of the hallway. What is it with these private bathrooms? she wonders, although frankly she can guess and doesn't really want to know. (A tiny part of her reminds her that she really can't judge – she'd been fucking in one just last night.)

Robin ducks into an open room, pulls her in and shuts the door behind them, and oh dear God in heaven, the club noise mutes to a dull pulsing more than actual noise. Regina lets out a sigh of relief, nearly sagging into the stall wall before remembering just where she is and straightening again.

"Better?" Robin asks her, and she nods.

"Much," she sighs, "Although this is an interesting choice of venue."

Robin shrugs, and says, "I figured there wouldn't be much noise, and I didn't fancy trying to get past that bouncer again if we went outside." He reaches for her then, trying to draw her in closer, but Regina stiffens. She's not here to cuddle. "I'm cleaner than the wall," he tells her, and oh, well, yes, she supposes that's true.

So Regina takes another step in, one more, closing the space between them and leaning into his body, her nose against his shoulder, her drink chilly against her fingertips and the strip of her arm it presses against where she holds it between them. He smells good, the cotton of his button-down shirt soft against her skin, and she lets herself relax a little, lets her eyes drop shut.

"I bet this place is crawling with DNA," she mutters into his shirt, and this time she gets to feel his chuckle instead of only hearing it.

"A girl could catch something just standing here," he agrees, and Regina stiffens and frowns, tilts her head down slightly as a little lick of shame flickers through her and then gutters out. Nothing to be ashamed of, she reminds herself. Hadn't been her fault, and now it's gone anyway.

His hand finds the back of her neck, and she goes even straighter, but he lifts away immediately, and she finds herself grateful that he's so aware of body language. So aware of her.

"I thought I'd rub your neck a bit, if that's okay? Thought it might help with your headache," he murmurs to her, adding, "But I don't have to."

"No, it's fine," she sighs, relaxing again as that hand presses to her nape and his fingers knead firmly into tight muscles. Oh, that does feel good… After a minute of silent massaging, she admits, "I get jumpier when I'm stressed."

"Mm." His head dips down, nose in her hair, and this is awfully intimate for where they are, for who they are, what they are to each other in reality if not on paper. Still, she doesn't move, not quite yet – he's found a particularly corded knot where neck meets shoulder and is doing something magical to it with his thumb. "I'm sorry about Peter," he tells her yet again, guilt clear in his voice.

"Stop apologizing," she sighs. "You didn't do it."

"Perhaps, but I know you wanted to keep things private." He has very good hands, strong hands… "And I saw how uncomfortable it made you."

She lifts her head up, intent on telling him that she's just mortified, that she wishes they'd made this mistake somewhere that she could sort it out without so many  _people_  crowding around her all the time, somewhere she could find some space to think without feeling the pressure of all the impending demands on her time. But she doesn't say anything, she just looks at him. His hand shifts to accommodate her movement, then keeps up the slow, steady kneading, and his eyes are… thoughtful, maybe? Curious? The bathroom lighting is dim, makes the blue in his eyes darker than she knows it is. Plus, he's a little fuzzy around the edges, what with her glasses being in her purse back on the table and all. The lack of light works for her, the quiet works for her, the throbbing in her skull is starting to feel considerably better…

She decides words are overrated and lets her head settle against his shoulder again, eyes closing. Seconds pass with nothing but the press and drag of his hands, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the darkness. With her nose pressed into his neck the way it is, she can't even smell the vague hint of toilet-covered-by-automatic-air-freshener.

It's not so bad here. Maybe marriage won't be so bad, for a little while. With him.

If marriage can just be him rubbing her neck and smelling nice, she thinks she can handle it.

"How has your night been?" he asks, finally, his voice low and close to her ear.

Regina lets free a groan, and mutters, "Annoying. Kathryn's furious, and everyone else seems to want to talk about it. Mary Margaret is convinced this is the beginning of some epic love story, but that may just be the appletinis talking."

"Appletinis?" Robin questions doubtfully, and Regina grunts an affirmative. "Can we really trust her taste, then?"

Regina smiles, and laughs softly. "No. No, probably not. She's convinced there's a true love happy ending out there for everyone. Naïve little princess, if you ask me."

"Because you don't believe in love." His fingers spread and splay down toward her shoulder blades, a sort of swooping caress that dips slightly under the neckline of her dress, before his hand coasts back up to knead near the base of her skull, and oh, yeah, that's the stuff.

She almost forgets what they're talking about for a minute, but she rallies, manages, "Not love. Marriage. I believe in love, just…"

God, that feels good. Feels better than what she'd been about to say, definitely.

But Robin isn't the type to let things go, not unfinished sentences like that, anyway, and he's coaxing, "Just what?"

"Love is for… other people."

His hand stills against her. Traitor.

"Other people," he repeats, his voice a bit dull and disbelieving.

"Yes."

"Not you?"

His hand starts moving again, and it feels so good that her, "Historically, no," has an almost embarrassingly husky quality to it.

And then he has to go and ruin the whole moment by telling her, "Well, that's awfully sad."

Regina jerks her head back and scowls at him, "You think I'm pathetic?"

He frowns. "Did I say that?"

"You said I was sad," she points out, taking a step back, putting distance between them, lifting her drink to pull a swallow from her straw.

"I said the fact that your history, which I'm fairly certain is no fault of your own, has convinced you that love isn't for you is quite sad," he clarifies, and okay, that's… better than the implication her mind had drawn from his words, but still makes her sound… weak. "You're not beyond loving, Regina."

"You don't know that," she tells him, because what does he really know? He with his good hands, and his delicious cologne and his idiotic friends. What does he really know about her? Not much. More than a lot of people, sure, but still not much.

"Of course I do; I married you," he retorts, and she knows he's trying to be funny, but she's not in a particularly joking mood. "What further proof do you need?"

"You didn't marry me because you love me, you idiot," she sneers. "You married me because we were drunk, and I challenged you."

Robin grins. "Your memory is clearer tonight, then?"

Shit.

"Stick to the subject at hand."

"I believe that still counts as on topic," he argues, but continues anyway, "You challenged me. Because you thought marriages were all a sham, and I believe they're more."

"Yes."

"So tell me then," he begins, leaning back against the wall of the restroom and crossing his arms over his chest as he continues, "what do I get out of this? If all marriages are just rearranging of chess pieces to suit the players, why did I agree to this? It's certainly not because of your consistently kind disposition."

It's a teasing barb more than an insult, but it surprises Regina how much that one careless little comment actually stings coming from him. He likes her, though, despite her claws and sharp teeth. She knows he does. So she tells herself to stop being so sensitive, and squares her jaw, stares him down.

"Because you're a hopeless romantic who thinks maybe you can change my mind by… I don't know… being there."

"Said with such disdain," he mocks good-naturedly.

Her headache is returning, encroaching slowly, and she wishes they'd never started down this particular path of conversation. Or that she was back in her hotel room, soaking in a hot bath with the lights down low and absolute silence. She'd take that in a heartbeat.

Robin isn't talking. Just standing there, patiently, like he's perfectly content to spend the evening hogging a bathroom stall with her. He's been that way all day. Content to be with her. A million other things he could be doing, and he's here with her. She doesn't understand it.

"Why  _did_  you say yes?" she wonders, losing some of her fire to nagging curiosity.

"Well, I don't really remember the particulars of the moment, as you well know," he tells her, "but with the pieces we've managed to cobble together I can imagine that I looked at you and thought it was a travesty that someone so beautiful and charming and full of life could see one of the most rewarding things I've ever done as a business transaction." His compliments – and even more so, the ease and sincerity with which they tumble from him – make her mouth curve slightly. A tiny smile she can't help. "And I've a terribly chivalrous streak, so I suppose my drunken self thought perhaps someone ought to show you what it was like to be stood by, to be a partner to someone who cares about you, and that that someone could be me."

And, see, that ruins it for her. She doesn't want to be an act of chivalry, of charity. It doesn't make  _sense_  why he would want this with her, how he could commit so easily to someone he doesn't know. How he could think  _she_  would be able to.

"A stranger," she points out, because they are. As much as they know, as much as they've shared, it's only been a day. They're still strangers. This is still insanity, no matter how right it feels (when it doesn't feel absolutely, terrifyingly wrong).

"Why not?" he shrugs. "You don't have to know someone well to treat them well, Regina."

The idea that he expects she'd correlate knowing someone with kind treatment makes her stomach feel hollow and cold. With the exception of Daniel's murder, every horrific thing in her life has been the act of a known entity. A parent, or a spouse, the people that everyone tries to tell you should be the ones who treat you best. They're always the ones who sink sharp teeth into your soft places until you bleed and bend. She wonders if Robin will still feel as safe as he does now once she hands him a year's worth of secrets, gives him the roadmap to annihilating her.

She wonders how good of a person he really is deep down, and then thinks he probably  _is_  genuinely good. Which makes her wonder what the hell he sees in her.

"What if I turned out to be a horrible person?" she challenges, and his answer is so automatic, so sure, that it has her dropping her gaze into her drink for a moment.

"You're not."

"You didn't –  _don't_  – know that," she tells him evenly.

"Sure, I do."

She looks back up at him, and sighs, "How?"

"I'm an excellent judge of character," he tells her, and she scoffs, shakes her head at him, smiling despite herself because of course he thinks he is. He's chuckling when he insists, "I am. And I've liked you – genuinely liked you – from the moment we started talking in that club. The only regret I have about the last twenty-four hours is that we ended up married, and wasted what could have been a much more romantic day on stressing over how to handle that."

"You find hangovers romantic?" she questions dryly.

"With the right person."

"Remind me not to let you anywhere near Mary Margaret," Regina mutters, "Five minutes together and the two of you will be trying to convince me we're soulmates."

"Nothing so grand as that," he assures her, "But I do think it's worth noting that we're both supposed to be here with other people, and yet here we are. Alone again, in a toilet cubicle, our friends ignored while we–"

"Hide from their judgment?" she interrupts. Truth be told, they're probably just piling on more. They've been gone for a  _while_  now, have been locked together in a bathroom stall just like last night, and last night by this point she was leaving her underwear on the floor and letting him screw her brains out. God, what if he thinks that's going to happen before they leave here? She'd told him no sex, but she'd told Leopold that too, and it had only taken him about twenty-four hours post-ceremony to change his mind. "I hope you don't think you're about to get laid again. Because you're not; let's just make that clear."

He makes a face at her, like she's being ridiculous. "I know that, darling. I told you before: I find you incredibly attractive – and you're quite fetching in red, by the way – but if we have sex again, it will be because you want to. I won't push."

Regina nods, and gives her straw a slow stir before confessing in hushed tones, "Leo told me that. He changed his mind. And so I want to trust you, but… I've done this before. I've already had a marriage that was supposed to have very clear rules, and the rules changed."

Robin lets out a breath, and reaches for her drink, drawing it from her fingers and reaching behind her to set it on the toilet paper dispenser. She makes a noise of displeasure – she'd rather not put her mouth on anything that has even touched a surface in this little room by proxy.

"I'll buy you another," he assures, and then he's straightening again and staying in close, weaving their fingers and drawing them up between his chest and hers. "Look at me, my darling," he urges gently, and she does, looks right into his eyes. "Your body is yours, completely–"

"You've told me this," she reminds him, and he shifts one hand up to weave loosely in the hair at her nape.

"And I'm telling you again," he tells her. "I will never ask for anything from your body that you are not willing to give, and I will never disregard you if you ask me not to touch you, or…" He gives his head a little shake. "I promise you, I swear to you on – I swear on Marian's memory that I will never force you, that I will never strike you, that I will never inflict pain on you." She feels the back of her eyeballs prickle, the telltale warning of tears, and forces herself to breathe in and out slowly to force them back. She's not crying, not here, and not over this. "Please, Regina, do not let the fear of that be what keeps you from doing this if you truly want to. I promise you, I will never cause you harm. Alright?"

She feels her head bob dumbly, her breath shallow and caught. The words leave her lips before she can think to school them out of the desperate plea that they are: "Tell me what you get out of this."

There has to be something, there has to be  _something_  more than just showing her what love is, because that is crap, and that will get old fast, and nobody, not even him, is that altruistic. They just aren't.

Robin bends his brow to hers, his fingernails scratching lightly against her neck as he shifts his grasp. It sends a shiver chasing through her, down her spine and back up to prickle along her scalp, and with it comes a sudden awareness that they are pressed together knee-to-shoulder, a sudden cloying closeness that has her stepping back to draw a clearer breath, their joined hands falling to hang loosely between them. Robin lets her go, doesn't question, just rubs his thumb across the back of her palm and lets his hand slip from her hair.

It takes him a minute to answer, and when he does, it's not much more than a whisper. "I loved being married. And it wasn't just loving Marian; I loved marriage. And I suppose I miss it."

"Being married to me won't be like being married to her," Regina warns, because there are warning bells, big, blaring REPLACEMENT WIFE warning bells going off in her head.

"I know that," he assures, stroking his thumb along her skin again. "I'd never expect it to be – I wouldn't want it to be. What I had with Marian was...ours. Irreplaceable. But I like the idea of spending the next year being someone's husband, and I'm very curious to find out what marriage to Regina Mills would be like."

"Probably hell," she tells him, not one to mince words.

"Well, then I'll go grab a pitchfork," he teases, giving their joined hands a playful little wiggle, and she laughs, can't help it. It's a terrible joke, but she can't help it. "Think on it," he urges. "Take your time deciding what you want. And in the meantime, why don't we go on back to our friends and make sure nobody  _else_  has managed to get drunk enough to upstage the bride the week before her wedding."

"God," Regina groans. "She'll never forgive me. I'm going to have to buy her a more expensive wedding present."

"Well, maybe Ruby and Peter will follow our lead tonight, and you won't have to worry about it."

"Ugh, right?" Regina sighs, shaking her head. "They're ridiculous. I'm surprised her thumbs haven't actually fallen off yet. She hasn't let go of her phone since six o'clock."

"I know, I've been hearing the constant  _ding!_  of every bloody text."

Regina laughs, and just like that, everything feels loose and easy again, the tension coiled in her muscles bleeding out, her fingers lax where they're looped in his. "Can we make a deal that if we see this marriage through we don't become...that?"

"Never," he agrees, and then that hand he's still holding is being lifted up, up, until his lips can brush lightly against her knuckle. A quick peck and gentle squeeze. "Let's go."

Regina nods, and then gives him a slightly sheepish smile.

"If you don't mind, I'm, uh, going to hang back for a second." She shoots a pointed glance to the toilet, and he chuckles and  _Ah_ s, and tells her he'll meet her by the sinks.

**.::.**

It takes all of five minutes after returning to the club for Robin to wish they'd stayed in the bathroom. He'd take the cramped quarters and questionable cleanliness (it hadn't been  _that_  bad, really) over the thump and flash of the dance floor any day. It doesn't help in the slightest that they spend those five minutes trying to figure out where the hell all their friends have relocated to, because their table is empty – or rather, now occupied by a group of strangers.

They find them, eventually, now occupying a couch and cluster of little round ottomans ringing a low table on the back wall. On the one hand, there's more room and a touch less noise, but on the other, they're further from the bar and sandwiched between a group of woo girls on the couch to one side, and very inebriated frat boys on the other.

And there doesn't seem to be any space left for the two of them.

"You're back!" Will calls as they approach, and even without the graveyard of empty glasses on the table (there's a perilous tower of shot glasses piled at least eight high that Robin thinks someone should dismantle before they end up paying for more than just the drinks), his overly-loud cheer would have clued them in to the fact that while they were having their little heart-to-heart the rest of their crew had gotten fairly blotto.

"How was the shag, then?" Will asks with a cheeky grin, and Robin glances at Regina long enough to see her roll her eyes. Right, this again.

He's about to intercede, to call Will down and face the barbs about how much of a stick-in-the-mud he's become, but before he gets a chance, Regina's expression shifts to something more predatory, and she's leaning forward, across John until she's close enough to lower her voice just a little for her, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Robin grins, and then laughs outright, shaking his head at her and, yes, stealing a glance at her rear while she's bent over (he's polite, not inhuman).

"You bloody liar," Will accuses, turning his attention to Robin as Regina straightens again. He makes his accent a bit lighter, closer to Robin's own as he taunts, "'We're not sleeping together, it's not that kind of marriage.' Biggest load of bull–"

"We didn't have sex," Regina interjects, loudly. "We don't have sex, it isn't that kind of marriage." Her shoulders rise and fall with a beleaguered sigh, and then she's turning to Robin and saying, "We should've stopped to get drinks."

"We just ordered another round of shots," John speaks up. "You like tequila, yeah?"

Regina's cheeks puff out with the exhale she releases, her whole expression going a little green. He can't blame her, considering how violently she'd booted up the fair bit of tequila she'd consumed the night before. Robin settles a hand on her spine, the muscle there tensing and then immediately relaxing.

"She's not drinking," Kathryn speaks up, a bit prissily but with enough slur to it to give away how many drinks she's had. "Comes to my bachelorette weekend, gets married,  _and_  doesn't even drink."

"I had plenty of drinks last night, several of them tequila-based," Regina tells her, and Robin knows that to be true because he paid for the great majority of them. "Tonight, I'm recovering. And staying far, far away from tequila."

"Spoilsport," Kathryn grouses, relaxing back into the cushions and sipping at the dregs of whatever drink she's been nursing.

"If you want something else, I'll go get it," Robin offers, giving her back a single, gentle stroke. "You stay."

She nods, tells him softly, "Vodka soda. Just one."

Robin nods, and then looks to Kathryn, "What's the bride-to-be drinking? I'll bring you another."

"Long Island Iced Tea," she declares, holding out her empty with a smile that Robin thinks (hopes?) means he's earned back a little bit of her favor with the gesture.

"Good God, that  _and_  shots? We'll have to roll you home," he tells her, reaching across to grab the empty glass.

Kathryn shrugs, and points to the women around her. "That's their job."

"That's going to end up my job," Regina mutters low enough that only he can hear, and Robin shoots her a sympathetic smirk and murmurs back that he'll help if it comes to that.

He's turning to head back through the crush of people between them and the bar when August calls out, "Wait!" and starts to extricate himself from where he's wedged between Kathryn and the arm of the couch. He slips around the ottomans, one hand brushing across Emma's shoulder as he goes. "I need another, too. Plus – extra hands."

Robin believes him until they're out of view of the couch and August stops him with a hand on his shoulder, waiting until they're facing each other again to ask, "You're already half in love with her, aren't you?"

Bollocks. He supposes he should have seen this coming. As much as he's tried to explain his motives, they're flimsy to his friends, and Robin's good at lying, good at hiding his intentions when he wants to be, but he's not  _that_  good, and they've known him a long time.

"So they put you in charge of the intervention, then?" Robin asks, annoyance tingeing his voice.

"No, this is just me," August tells him. "But I know they're concerned. And I know you're avoiding the question."

"It's just an agree–"

"That's not what I asked, man," August interrupts, and Robin's irritation ticks higher. Couldn't this wait until they weren't in the middle of a crowded club? Maybe somewhere they didn't have to half-shout to hear each other.

"It's temporary," Robin insists. At the end of the day, his feelings for Regina don't matter. This will all end in a year, regardless.

"Still not it," August says, not buying the evasion for a minute.

Robin tries a different tactic, telling his friend, "She doesn't believe in marriage."

That works. August's brow crinkles, his mouth twisting in a confused scowl.

"Your  _wife_  doesn't believe in marriage?"

"No. She thinks it's all rot, that it's nothing but self-serving." Someone nearly bumps into Robin trying to squeeze through the space they're occupying, so he jerks his head for August to follow and waves them to an area that's slightly more open and a hair less noisy. "I've not told you any of this, you pretend you don't know a word, you understand?" August nods, so Robin commits his first betrayal of Regina, one he can't blame on someone else's big mouth. "Her ex-husband was an abusive git, and her mother's so hideous Regina's willing to pretend to be married to a man she just met – willing to weave an elaborate lie about how we met and commit to it for a year, keep up the lie for the rest of her life, probably, even if the marriage ends. She thinks it's all shit, and of course she does, why wouldn't she?" Robin stuffs his hands into his pockets, his shoulders lifting and falling. "She could do with some kind treatment, and I've a chance to be the one who gives it to her, that's all."

August's eyes narrow slightly, and then he says, "She's not a stray cat, Robin. She's a person."

"I know that," Robin bites, annoyed all over again. "Don't say it like… Just drop it, alright?"

"I can't, man," August says with a slow shake of his head, and Robin huffs out an irritated,  _And why not?,_ before being told, "Because you're already half in love with her. And if you weren't, you'd have said so."

He has a point there.

"I'm not in love with her," Robin tells him, and it's the truth. He's not. Not really, not yet, but he can see how easily he could be, and knows August can see it too. That's the whole reason they're standing here instead of jammed in at the bar like they ought to be. "But I… I want her to know love. Even if it's not real love. Even if it's just the act of love, just the gestures, just the being there, I… can't stomach the thought of her living the rest of her life thinking that sort of thing isn't real, or that she isn't deserving of it."  _Love is for other people_  lodges itself firmly in his mind, complete with the open, fearful trepidation and relief in her eyes as he'd promised he'd never do what others had done to her. He'll not be talked out of this, not by anyone but Regina. August can go and get stuffed if he thinks otherwise. "She has so much pain. I'll not stand by and do nothing about it."

"She's not yours to fix," August argues, settling his hands on Robin's shoulders and looking him dead in the eye. "She's not yours, Robin."

Robin shakes him off mightily, stepping in close as he informs his complete arse of a friend, "She is now. For the next year, she's mine – not to fix, I'm not naïve enough to think people can be – should be – fixed. I just want her to know that as long as she's with me, she'll be loved for who she is. I want her to feel safe. That's all I want."

And he won't be faulted for that. He simply won't be.

"This is going to end badly for you," August says and Robin lets out an exasperated scowl, his head rolling backward, eyes skyward for a moment. "No, Robin, listen to me. You're going to get too caught up, you're going to fall stupid in love with her, and when it ends, it'll kill you." The rational part of Robin understands that the surge of anger he feels at that particular statement probably means that August is correct, but if he was being rational, he wouldn't be married to someone he met yesterday, so Robin stays silent, tips his head down to stare at their shoes and the oddly fluorescent stain on the floor nearby, his jaw clenched tightly. "End it now. She can't fault you for changing your mind on this absolutely insane idea now that you're out of the post-coital-hotel-room bubble. If not for you, then for her."

His head snaps back up at that.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Robin demands.

"I know you. You can't not love her. If you're going to act like you love her, you will love her. And if you've convinced her you can do this–" Robin shakes his head and starts to step away, but August reaches out and halts him with a firm grip on his arm until he relaxes back into place. "Fake a meaningless marriage for a year and then walk away – you're not being fair to her. You're not going to want to let her go; you know you're not."

He's not. He knows that already, because he doesn't want to let her go  _now_ , but it's not about what he wants. None of this really is.

"It's up to her," he tells August.

"Is it?"

"Yes," Robin answers firmly. "It will always be up to her. Everything will always be up to her."

"That's not a marriage," August points out calmly.

"It's been a long time since anyone put her first, and I intend to make up for that."

"You can't heal her," August tells him, words intentional and steady.

"I'm not trying to."

"Yes, you are!" he argues, losing a shred of patience, and good, that makes two of them. August manages to steady his voice when he continues, "You see her pain, and you want to fix it. You want to make it less. I get that – I know you, so I get that. But forcing love on someone won't magically stitch together all their broken parts."

"I'm not forcing anything on her," Robin tells him, the very insinuation sending his temper steaming. "I've given her an option; that's it. And you know what? Yes, I do like her. I like her a lot, actually, and if we'd woken up this morning  _without_  wedding rings on our fingers, I'd be asking to see her again, and you wouldn't give a good flipping fuck about it, so what is the bloody problem?"

"The problem is you  _married her!_ " August shoots back, and Robin feels his temper pop again.

"I was drunk!" he shouts back, and if he was a bit more aware, he'd know that people were watching them, that they were drawing a certain amount of attention, but all he's really aware of right now is the thudding of his pulse in his veins and the heat of anger up his spine.

"Well now you're sober, so fucking act like it. You've known her for twenty-four hours."

"I know that! And I know it's mad as a bag of fucking ferrets, but it feels right!"

"Well, if it  _feels right_ , then by all fucking means," August bites.

"It's my choice," Robin snarls at him. "Her choice, and my choice, and nobody else's. Now I'm going to go buy my wife a drink, and you can sod the hell off."

This time when he turns to stalk away, August doesn't stop him.

**.::.**

August blows in like a storm cloud, all tension and anger and Robin nowhere to be found. He takes one look at Regina in the seat he'd vacated and that anger sharpens, rolling up into a clenched jaw and shake of his head that has the hairs on her arms standing up, her shoulders tensing.

Regina does not like angry men.

But he looks away almost immediately, giving Will a little shove to the shoulder and ordering, "Move over."

Will looks up, a bit bleary-eyed (they'd had those tequila shots in the time Robin and August were gone, and of course they'd ordered shots for the two of them too – had been ordering for everyone all night and just doling out the shots for the missing parties to whoever reached first, apparently – and Will had downed hers this round so he's well on the road to wasted), and asks, "Wha?"

"There are no other spots, move the fuck over and share your seat."

Kathryn stops giggling over whatever Mary Margaret had just said, and Elsa pauses mid-sentence with Emma.

There's irritation pumping off of August in waves, something coiled and held back, and that's the worst kind of anger, the unpredictable kind. The powder kegs waiting to blow. Regina is suddenly very glad that Will is occupying an ottoman on the other side of the table, and that she has Kathryn on one side, cheap velour on the other, and Emma and Elsa piled together on the seat nearest her.

"What's your bloody problem?" Will grumbles, but he scoots over anyway, shifts until August can park himself on the other half of his ottoman.

"My problem," he says as he swipes the tequila shot that's still sitting on the table (Regina has Robin's in her hand, the smell of it alone making her vaguely queasy but Kathryn had reached for it twice when it was on the table), sloshing half of it with the force of his grab, "Is Robin."

Regina glances around for the man in question as August knocks the shot back.

"Where is he?" John asks, and August exhales heavily, his anger beginning to settle down into more of a charged irritation.

"Getting his wife a drink," August mutters, something in the way he says it making it very clear to Regina just exactly what it was that had gotten tempers so high:  _her_. Her pulse picks up a tick when August looks at her, and she readies herself for an argument of some kind, but all he says is, "You're married to a fucking idiot."

The sudden tension at the table is palpable, thick. Regina gives a little shrug, and tells August, "I already knew that."

It works, breaking the mood, spurring Will into a laugh that snorts halfway through and then everyone is snickering drunkenly and shifting back into conversation without too much trouble.

Regina stays quiet, though, stealing glances at August as he gets into a low conversation with John, something she can't hear from this side of the table. Not being able to make it out does nothing to settle the unease she feels. No, that doesn't fade until she spies Robin making his way toward him, three glasses clutched carefully in his grasp.

Regina stands immediately, squeezing past Emma and Elsa and meeting him halfway, reaching out for the nearest glass – hers, by the look of it. Robin doesn't appear nearly as furious as August had, but he's had ten more minutes to reign his temper in, and she can still see that something is not quite right.

"Is everything okay?" she asks quietly, stepping in close to keep the conversation between them.

"It's fine, don't worry about," he mutters, but it is not fine, he's tense and edgy, and his gaze slides halfway toward August before snapping back like he's caught himself, the set of his jaw more rigid than it was a moment before.

"You're lying," she tells him softly, but all he does is sigh and nod her back toward her seat.

"Go sit," he urges, holding out the taller of the two drinks he's still carrying, "Bring this to Kathryn."

She's tempted to tell him that a little please-and-thank-you goes a long way, but it doesn't seem the time.

"What about you?" she asks, because if she goes back to the couch, that's all their seats accounted for and Robin left standing.

"I'm alright; I'll stand."

His gaze is restless, and there's this muscle in his jaw that keeps shifting whenever he's not speaking. What the hell had happened in the twenty minutes they'd been gone?

"Just how angry are you right now?" she asks, reaching out to smooth her fingers over the hand still holding Kathryn's drink, squeezing lightly at his wrist.

"Livid," he confesses darkly, his next breath just a hair deeper than the one before. "But it doesn't matter. Sit; those heels are murder, yeah?"

Regina glances down, wondering when exactly he had time to take notice of her shoes. They're the same ones she'd worn the night before, and yes, they're awful, but aside from their little tête-à-tête in the bathroom, she hasn't been on her feet much tonight.

It's that thought that gives her an idea, makes her realize how to fix this, or at least make it just a little bit better. She lifts her drink, takes a few deep glugs just in case it happens to wander away after she puts it down (with these drunken vultures, it's entirely possible), and then she plucks Kathryn's from his hand and knocks it gently against his lowball.

"Drink up," she urges, "I want to dance."

Robin's scowl deepens, his dimples winking out briefly. "What?"

"I haven't danced all night," she tells him. "This music is terrible, but I want to dance, and you need a distraction. So drink."

She doesn't wait for him to obey, turns instead to stretch across the table and hold out the full glass to her cousin. "Your Long Island, dear."

Kathryn brightens and reaches for it, and as Regina sets her glass down (in front of Emma, where it might be relatively safe) she notices Robin's shot has disappeared from where she'd left it on the table. Shocker. The brunch plans she'd actually managed to get Kathryn to agree to earlier in the evening are starting to look doubtful if they keep this up.

Regina looks to Emma and Elsa, asks, "Watch my drink – don't  _drink_  it,  _watch_ it?" Off Emma's  _Yeah, sure_ , she tells her, "We're going to the dance floor."

"Ooh, me too!" Kathryn declares, but when she tries to stand, she wobbles, and only Mary Margaret's reflexes (shockingly quick for how drunk Regina knows she is, too) keep her from spilling her drink down the front of her dress. The brunette gives a high  _Oops!_ , and Kathryn plunks back down to the couch with a giggle.

Regina is far too sober for this, but the little display has a laugh bursting from Robin behind her, and good, she likes the sound of that. That's better than his thinly veiled frustration.

"I think you'd better stay here, love; you're legless," he tells Kathryn, all sympathetic amusement.

"We'll be back," Regina assures her, and Kathryn waves a hand sloppily and makes a face, sipping from her straw again. Entirely uncaring about, well, everything.

Fine by Regina; it means she won't care about her disappearing with Robin for a while – again.

She turns to find that most of his whiskey is gone, and he passes his glass to Will (no chance of returning to even a drop of it later with that particular babysitter) before letting his fingers weave with Regina's.

She leans in close and tells him, "Come on; let's go somewhere a little louder."

Robin follows her lead out onto the dance floor, and they stay there until they're both sweat-slicked and breathless, until Regina's feet are killing her, until Emma comes to tell her that everyone is headed back to their respective hotels.

And then they stay a little longer.


	6. Chapter 6

That she's not alone when she walks into the hotel's fitness room doesn't come as a terrible surprise to Regina – it's not  _that_  early in the day, even for a weekend, even for Las Vegas.  _Who_  she finds there, however, is somewhat of a shock.

"I didn't expect to see you before noon," she teases Kathryn dryly, one eyebrow arched as she strolls up to the treadmill next to the one her cousin is occupying. Considering how much they'd had to drink last night, how drunk everyone had been by the time Regina left them at the table, she's surprised the bride-to-be is even awake right now, much less steadily walking the belt. Then again, she is moving pretty slowly, a little pale and maybe a bit sweatier than she ought to be for the pace she's keeping. "What are you doing here?"

The look she gives Regina is one of vague misery. "I think I'm dying," she declares, and Regina can't help it. She laughs.

"A feeling I know well." She's thinking of yesterday, of her pitching stomach and throbbing head, as she steps onto her own machine, depositing her water bottle in the holder and matching Kathryn's gait – for now. "You had quite a night."

Kathryn lets out a grunt of disgusted agreement.

"I either need more booze, or no booze ever again."

"A word of advice," Regina suggests. "Next time, stick to something with a lower liquor-to-mixer ratio than Long Islands."

"Yeah," Kathryn groans, shifting her grip to brace against the hand rests. "Or stay away from your husband's friends. They can  _drink_."

It still sends her stomach swooping – her  _husband_  – and Regina wonders if there will ever come a time it won't. If they go through with this, that is.

"Believe me, I know." Regina gives a half-heated roll of the eyes and lifts her left hand, wiggling her fingers pointedly. "I have the unfortunate jewelry to prove it."

"I can't believe you got married," Kathryn sighs, and Regina blows out an irritated breath. If they're going to have this conversation again, she's leaving. But Kathryn's voice softens as she says, "I thought you'd given up on ever doing that again, after Leo." She says his name like it's a dirty word she's afraid someone will overhear, a low mumble, her glance shifting askance. It's the aversion that raises Regina's hackles more than the mention of the man himself.

She punches her pace a tick higher, and then one more, before answering. "I had. I have."

Kathryn increases her pace ever-so-slightly to keep up. "And yet, here you are."

"Not by choice, I assure you," Regina mutters, focusing her gaze on the TV screen in her machine. It's playing some ridiculous music video – something old, 1980s old, fuzzy around the edges with bad hair and too much makeup. "Being someone's wife is the last thing I want."

"Then why are you doing it?" Kathryn questions, her breath a little shallow now. She must not have been here long before Regina arrived, or maybe having an impromptu workout buddy is making the whole prospect of running hungover less daunting. "I've been trying to figure it out, Regina, and I just don't get it."

"You know my mother."

"Yeah, I know Aunt Cora can be a bitch, but–"

"But you don't  _know_  my mother," Regina finishes, interrupting Kathryn. "I was plastered when I called her. I don't even remember what I said, that's how drunk I was. And she told  _everyone_. Do you think she was just sharing the good news? That she was excited to have a son-in-law?" Another click higher, a quicker slap of sneaker on treadmill, a more insistent rush of blood through her veins. "She did it to humiliate me. I'm almost forty years old, and my mother just skywrote my drunken mistakes for the whole family. And I'm not putting up with it this time. This time, I'm in control."

"You're doing something you swore you never would because of her; how is that being in control?"

Regina shoots her a glare, jaw clenching before she looks back to big hair and blue eyeshadow and thinks that, well... Kathryn's sort of right. Is committing to this farce of a marriage just letting her mother control her behavior, again? Letting Cora push her into doing something she doesn't want – is in fact vehemently against on principle, and precisely because of the last time her mother pushed her into a marriage she didn't want. But she was young, then, and naïve and grieving, she hadn't been thinking straight. Now... Now, she's... Well, she'd been drunk when she made the decision, hungover when she decided to stick with it, and now she's sober and well-rested, and confused.

And Kathryn is still waiting for an answer.

"It's only for a year," she tells her finally. "One year, and then we're going to divorce. This won't be a real marriage. It's a legal one, but..." Regina grasps her water, unscrews the cap. "I get to keep my life, my place, my autonomy. It's not the same."

She takes a deep gulp of cool water, but it does little to soothe the heat of anxiety in her belly.

"So it's all for show?" Kathryn pants lightly, sounding unconvinced. "Last night is a little fuzzy, but it looked like you two actually like each other."

Regina drops her water bottle back into place with a resolute thunk.

"You were drunk."

There's a particular haughty tone that only Kathryn is capable of, a know-it-all archness that colors her words as she says, "I know what I saw. And I wasn't  _that_  drunk when the two of you disappeared for half an hour."

It's an implication Regina doesn't appreciate, so she shakes her head and insists, "We were talking. That's all."

"In the bathroom?"

"It was quiet."

"Mmhmm."

Regina blows out an annoyed breath and admits, "Yes. Fine. I like him – as a person. I wouldn't saddle myself with him for a year if I didn't. And maybe things look..." Probably pretty bad, she thinks. Probably pretty real. But that's largely Robin's fault. She punches the treadmill up a setting, mouth pulled into a scowl. "Nothing happened in the bathroom. We were just talking. He was... worried about me. He's a romantic; I'm his wife. Even if it's only temporary, he intends to treat me the way he thinks a wife should be treated. Concern, and support, and understanding, and all that garbage."

Regina colors the words with her usual derision for Robin's sentimentality, and it draws a sound of amused recognition from Kathryn. "How terrible."

"It's annoying," Regina huffs. "And not real."

"For him or for you?"

Another dark glare shoots its way to Regina's left. "For both of us. All the play-acting in the world won't make this any less a mockery of the very institution he's claiming to uphold."

"Still, it's seductive." No haughtiness now, just a curious edge of suggestion. A leading sort of lingering over the words. "Especially for someone with your history."

Regina turns her head so fast she nearly upsets her balance, brows stitched tight and mouth pursed for a moment before she bites, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You had your heart crushed, Regina," Kathryn says with enough pity that Regina feels the overwhelming compulsion to drive a fist right into her nose. The only thing that keeps her from actually doing it is the mortal sin that would be maiming the bride a week before pictures. "And then... Leo. And you haven't let yourself get into a serious relationship since. Hell, I'm not sure you've ever gone past a third date – not that you've told me about, anyway. I don't think anyone would fault you for wanting a year of affection. I wouldn't have. If you'd told me."

Regina is sure if she was looking, Kathryn would be all sympathetic eyes and understanding smiles, but she's staring stubbornly at her TV again, teeth clenched, blood pumping for reasons beyond the pace of her jog.

"That's not why I'm doing this."

She jabs her finger hard into the button that increases her incline until it's something that will get her thighs burning in short order.

"There's nothing wrong with–"

"I'm doing it so I don't have to spend next weekend being paraded around for public humiliation. So that Mother doesn't get to run the show  _again_ ," Regina pants, beginning to feel the healthy strain of muscles warming and flexing, and the considerably less healthy surge of irritation bordering on temper. It makes her stumble over her words, makes her sound clumsy and flustered. "I am doing it for – for – for entirely practical reasons, not stupidly sentimental ones.  _He_  is the one who is stupid and sentimental, not me."

"Mm," Kathryn says, not convinced.

"Kathryn," Regina mutters warningly.

"I didn't say anything," her cousin shrugs, but her 'not saying anything' has said plenty, and Regina's guts are all twisted up in knots. She's not doing this because she craves kindness. She isn't. She's not that pathetic, not that weak, not that  _needy._ She's doing this because it salvages her pride, and that's all.

And she doesn't need convincing of that, she  _does_   _not_ , and Kathryn doesn't deserve it. So Regina tells her sharply, "Just shut up and run," and then punches her speed up until she's breathless enough that talking is out of the question.

It's a pity there's not a speed that can outrun her thoughts.

**.::.**

An hour and a half later, she's sweated, and showered, and is in the process of making herself presentable for the public when she gets a text that makes her brows shoot nearly to her hairline.

She's amazed, really.

Shocked and amazed that with how much they'd all had to drink last night her friends even managed to  _remember_  they had made brunch plans with Robin and his guys, much less actually made it up in time to attend. (Kathryn had the looming threat of a too-tight wedding dress to inspire her early morning workout, but she'd claimed the others were enviously dead to the world when she'd crept out that morning.) But here it is, noon, and Regina is staring at a text from Elsa asking what time exactly they're supposed to be meeting and where.

So much for the assumption that she'd be spending another day practically on her own – or at least away from the women she came here with.

They hadn't gotten around to planning such specifics as time and venue before Robin had showed up last night, so Regina doesn't really have an answer to her friend's text. But this brunch had been Robin's idea, and it requires participation from Robin's friends, so she flicks over to her contacts and clicks on the  _L_ s to bring up Locksley.

It's not there.

Regina's brow furrows. He has to be there, how can he not be there? She was talking to him just last night, he was there, and then–

Oh, for fuck's sake.

The realization that she'd left her phone in her purse – and therefore out of her possession – for a good portion of the night hits Regina with a flare of annoyance, and she abandons Contacts for Messages in the hope that their latest text thread is still there and she'll be able to figure out what idiotic moniker her friends must have decided to change Robin's name to.

And then she makes a mental note to change her passcode to something Emma Swan won't be able to figure out.

When she sees the name they'd chosen for him (Mr. Hottie McBritishpants-Mills) she snorts a rather unladylike laugh, and is tempted to leave it that way. But then she runs the risk of him somehow seeing it and thinking she's endorsed this proclamation of him as a hottie (which, if she's being objective, isn't exactly incorrect, but she's plagued by a constant internal tug-of-war between wanting to let him be exactly what he's offered to be for her and wanting to bite and scratch and push him as far away as possible), and she can't have that. So she edits his contact, but indulges a little bit of smug satisfaction in changing his name to Robin Mills instead of Robin Locksley, because if she's facing a possible year stuck with his name he can at least wear hers for a while, even if it's meaningless. Even if it's just her being petty.

And then she taps the call button, and waits.

The phone rings, and it rings, and she wonders if he's still asleep. They hadn't gotten in until late – it had been after two-thirty when he'd escorted her to the door of her hotel room, their fingers linked loosely as they'd walked the streets. The dancing had been meant as a distraction from whatever had happened between Robin and August (the details of which he'd been utterly unwilling to share, aside from a grumble that August was "being a right git" and would "get over it once he starts suffocating from having had his head lodged so firmly up his arse"), but it had ended up being oddly cathartic for her, too.

Or maybe cathartic isn't the right word, but it had been… nice. Freeing. With sex off the table (and she's trying to trust that he means that, she really, truly is), she'd been able to shimmy and shake her hips and press up against him without worrying about leading him on, or where things might end up. She'd been able to just… be. To just relax – something she'd been in desperate need of for a while, if she's honest with herself.

Not that she needs him – or anything he provides her, aside from a convenient way to save face with her family–

The thought is cut off as he answers his phone on the fourth ring – and then drops it, if the clattering sound and ripe accenting cursing are any indication. He's breathless when he finally greets, "Hi. How're you?"

"Am I interrupting something?" she asks, brow lifting even though he's not there to see it.

"I was in the shower when I heard the phone ring," he tells her, and that makes sense. There's a beat and then, "What did you  _think_  I was doing?"

Regina shrugs. "I hadn't given it much thought. You sounded winded."

"I slipped on the bloody bathroom floor, and nearly fell arse over tit. Came a hair from cracking my skull open on the door before I caught myself," he admits, and Regina frowns, the thought of him banged up and bleeding making her feel decidedly unsettled. "And I didn't want you to go to voicemail."

The blinks away the thought of sticky red and bruising, and asks, "How did you know it was me?"

"Oh. Um." He clears his throat, and then admits, "I gave you a ringtone."

She smiles, can't help it. That's sweet. And a little creepy. "After one day?"

"I figured you weren't likely to call for a chat," he says. "If you're calling, it's important. And I told you, you're a priority for me. That's what all this means, if you agree to it."

If she agrees to it. She's going to have to decide, one way or another, and soon. Today. She heads back to Santa Monica tonight, and if she's going to sell marriage next weekend, she'll need the women she's here with to be on board with whatever their story is. It'd be too much to hope nobody at the wedding will as for eye-witness accounts of the Surprise Marriage of the Century. The thought has her stomach doing spastic, angry cartwheels. She has a commitment to make, or not, and she... she'd like more time. A day or two, a week or two, to make a decision about something like this.

"Did you need something?" Robin asks her, and she realizes she's been silent for longer than is comfortable.

With a quick clearing of her throat, she explains, "Brunch. We never decided when and where, and the girls are asking."

They make plans to meet at one of the restaurants attached to her hotel, settling on a time that will give everyone a chance to wash off their hangovers and glug down a suitable amount of coffee before having to mingle, and Regina reminds him to bring her contacts.

They don't linger on the phone – he's dripping wet, after all, and she has a head of hair half-straightened and half wavy, her flat iron awaiting her on the bathroom counter. She's reaching for it again when her phone buzzes and she glances down to see a text from her mother:  _Regina, please call me today. This avoidance is childish and I'd like to discuss this man suddenly married to my only daughter._

She stares and stares at the message, feeling the familiar clash of obligation, guilt, and rebellion that she always feels when her mother makes her displeasure known. Her attention stills at last on  _My only daughter_ and sharp anger obliterates all other emotion. She thinks of her sister and flips her phone over with more force than she probably should, the screen hitting the counter with a sharp smack.

Mother can wait another day.

**.::.**

Robin is running late. Not by much, and he thinks he should get some credit for managing to get his men roused and ready in even this amount of time considering the state they'd been in, but regardless - they're five minutes late and he's irritated by the delay.

"Isn't that them?" John asks, pointing to a group of women not far off as they walk into the second floor of the hotel complex.

Robin doesn't see Regina, so shakes his head, says, "No, I don't recognize–" and then, "Oh," and "yes."

Yes, John is right, that's them. Robin doesn't remember all their names, has been too consumed with the situation with Regina to retain such trivial details, but he knows Kathryn is the bride and she's hard to miss in her white t-shirt that is Bedazzled as such across the back. There are others, faces recognizable now as he takes a better look. The shorter woman with a cap of dark hair whose name he thinks started with M and was vaguely reminiscent of the nuns from his brief stint in Catholic schooling, and the taller, lankier blonde who he knows August had shown particular interest in (Emily? Emma?), a brunette with a shock of red hair – Ruby, he remembers. That one name he can recall (how could he not, with how besotted Peter is). Another blonde, and another brunette.

They're all familiar to him, but their names for some reason largely elude him, and he has the decency to feel just a little bit bad about it. Although in his defense, he hasn't spent considerable time with the other women of her party, not really. He can't be faulted for not remembering them all on first meeting, not with how much they'd already been drinking on Friday, and while he'd not been too terribly sloshed last night, he'd not spent much time with the group either. He and Regina had disappeared on their own, and then there'd been the row with August. (Something that has bubbled over into today – the other man electing  _not_  to brunch with the women they seem to have adopted as an extension of their group for the weekend now that it's day three of meeting up with them, whether by happenstance, selfish machinations, or advance planning – Robin knows he'll have to mend fences there somehow, but at the moment can't be arsed to deal with it – he has more important things on his mind.)

After that, she'd pulled him out onto the dance floor in short order, and he'd spent the rest of his evening trying valiantly not to pop a boner while she'd shimmied and ground against him, smelling of flowers and spice and sweat, in that snug dress, with her tempting curves and those curls he'd wanted to bury his hands in. It had been a good distraction, albeit one that limited their socializing – not that he'd complained, not one bit. And then the rest of them had buggered off, and they'd been alone again.

They'd danced a bit more, but the music wasn't all that good, and the ambience had been fairly terrible, so it hadn't been long before she'd turned in his arms, leaned in close and spoken loudly over the music, asking him to walk her back to her room. She'd been sober, but smiley, and breathless, happier than he'd ever seen her, her fingers twined loosely with his as they ambled the strip. He'd thought perhaps August was right, then, and that this was a terrible mistake, because a happy Regina Mills, it turns out, is a stunning Regina Mills. He'd not been able to take his eyes off her, hadn't wanted to take his hands off her – even if he was limited to just those five fingers linked with hers, it was a connection he'd been loathe to break. That didn't bode well for breaking other connections down the road.

And yet, here he is. Still every bit as committed to their farce of a marriage as he'd been when he suggested it (could it be?) only twenty-four hours ago. There's a sturdy rightness to the idea, one he cannot shake, and so he won't be the one to call it off. He won't be the one to offer her cover and then snatch it away, or to promise to stand by her only to walk off with no regard for how it might hurt her. He's made his commitment and he intends to uphold it; she'll choose how she will and that will be that.

Or perhaps she would if she was here, but as far as he can tell, she's not. Odd, considering this brunch was their arrangement.

"But I don't see..." he begins, trailing off and frowning at the bunch as he tries to spy Regina amongst them.

"Isn't that her, there, looking at her phone?" John asks, and Robin takes a second look at that last brunette.

Oh.

"Oh." He clears his throat a little, looks sheepish. "Yes."

"Well done, mate," Will teases. "Not able to recognize your bride when she's staring you right in the face. Your marriage is off to a smashing start."

The brunette is Regina, and it's plain to see that now – mortifyingly, she's the one whose face has been the most visible this entire time. But he can't be faulted for not immediately recognizing her, can he? Sure, he spent the better part of yesterday with her, but she was bare-faced and undone and casually dressed – and then party ready with her red dress and red lips and soft curls. Today, she's somewhere in between, standing there in snug white denim and a sleeveless top in lavender that looks like it'd be silky to the touch. Her hair has been tamed from the twisting waves he remembers from yesterday, is now sleek and straight, and drawn up into a ponytail, her face perfectly painted but not overdone. But it's the glasses that threw him off the most, he thinks. He should have expected as much, considering her lenses are in his pocket, and she'd surely not want to spend the rest of her weekend squinting. But the sight of her in her glasses is… well, to be honest, it's rather adorably fetching.

They're purple – her frames – not too outrageously so, but still a festive pop of color, one he wouldn't have expected. It's a little bit of whimsy that has him smiling even before she glances up and spies him. Their eyes lock and hold, and then she's turning away, alerting the rest of the women to their approaching presence.

**.::.**

He walks toward her with a smile – he and his friends – one of those belly-warming smiles of his, and she wants to say it annoys her, but it… doesn't. No, instead it makes something flutter in her chest and her belly swoop with adrenaline, Kathryn's words from earlier popping up like a rather rude Jack-in-the-box:  _Seductive...for someone with your history_. He is, she's realized. She's… He… This is a terrible idea… but does she want it anyway? Does she just want… affection? Kindness? What he's promised her? Or is this really self-serving, is this really about Mother, is this– He's fast approaching, and all these questions have no answers, not right now anyway, so she shoves them down, away, back.

She presses her lips together to keep from smiling back at him, and steps forward a few paces, crossing the rest of the distance between them. He stops, face-to-face with her, his friends continuing on to join hers – and she says a silent prayer of thanks that they'd run into each other last night, all of them, because it eliminates the need for her and Robin to make introductions today.

So for a moment, they're alone. Or not really alone, but far enough from the others to have a sliver of privacy.

She holds her hand out to him, and says, "Lest you end up going home with them, I'll take those contacts now."

That smile becomes a deep-dimpled smirk, and he shoves his hand into his pocket, draws it back out and settles it over hers, the unmistakable plastic of her contacts case between their palms. His hand lingers there long enough for him to tell her, "I like the purple," before dropping away.

"I'm sure you like a lot of things," she mutters, already tucking the case into the zip pocket inside her purse for safekeeping.

He leans in, then, stage-whispering to her, "A simple thank you would suffice," and when she looks back up her eyes get caught in all that blue. Warm, and humorous, and maybe just a touch put-out. Her barb had maybe been… unnecessarily rude, she realizes. She's nervy, and it makes her snappy, and that's not his fault. It's hers.

Still, she can't bring herself to raise her voice above a whisper when she concedes, "Thank you."

"Not so hard, now was it?" he teases back, and there goes all that momentary goodwill. She feels her face twist into a scowl, her eyes rolling. She's been antsy all morning, has been feeling queasy with anxiety over this whole brunch idea – over the continuation of their marriage being an actual  _thing_  that  _real people_ know about, of it existing outside the safety of his hotel room or the dark and alcohol-soaked ambience of a nightclub. And that anxiety has her on-edge and short-fused. So when he reaches for her hand, weaves their fingers gently and squeezes, she nearly rips away from his grasp. But then he's asking her, "What's wrong? Other than the obvious," as though he genuinely wants to know.

"Nothing's wrong," she tells him, knee-jerk.

All he does is tilt his head at her, shifts his grip until his fingers are wrapped around hers instead of between, his thumb coasting tenderly across her knuckles, back and forth, and again, again.

"Are you sure?"

It's kind, and caring, and supportive, and she's weak and stupid and this is unfair to him, saddling him with all her  _issues_  just because she's too cowardly to put up with a weekend of abuse from her mother. She's lasted thirty-seven years, what's one week more? All little mortification won't kill her. Neither will a lot of it.

Regina takes a deep breath and lets it out, her gaze sliding toward their mingling friends.

"Maybe this isn't a good idea," she admits softly, a tiny bit of her gaining a fresh crack at the loss of something she doesn't even have yet. Something she hasn't even fully agreed to. Something she doesn't even need.

"Brunch?" he asks innocently.

Regina shakes her head and looks back at him. "All of it."

Robin nods, once, not an agreement, just gathering his thoughts. He doesn't let go of her hand.

"It's not too late to change your mind," he tells her softly, his thumb tickling whorls against her skin now.

"I'm not so sure about that," she tells him, annoyed at the tension in her voice. "We already told our friends." Kathryn knows the truth, knows the reasons why she's doing this, but only Kathryn, and she's fairly certain her cousin will keep her secrets. Especially now that she thinks this will be  _good for Regina_  – more disgusting words she's never heard. The rest of their friends, everyone else, they just think they're all insane. Because they are, this is.

"But just them," Robin points out, still even, still unruffled. She's envious and angry all at once. Why can't he be as bothered by all this as she is? "Just those few. If you want to call it off, we'll call it off. Explain it to them, and get the annulment." He loses just a shade of that unflappable calm as he mutters, "I'm sure August will be bloody relieved," and it makes the corner of her mouth tip up in something that must be a smirk, but it feels wrong on her face just now.

His voice goes steady again as he continues, "But that won't solve everything. You'll still have to face your mother, and tell her the truth. Correct everyone's misinformed opinion of what's happened. More than just our friends will know." He pauses there, and Regina's stomach twists violently with the thought of a hundred and fifty wedding guests being regaled with the tale of No-I'm-not-actually-married-it's-a-really- _funny_ -story in a week's time. Maybe she's not as prepared to endure mortification as she'd like to believe, if the sudden pitching nausea is any indication. Robin gives her hand a squeeze and adds, "And they'll forget, in time."

"Not all of them," she murmurs, her free hand pressing to her belly and rubbing absently. "Not likely. Mother will be sure to make it memorable."

"So what do you want?" he asks earnestly, swinging their hands lightly. "What do you need, Regina?"

"I don't know," she sighs, exasperated, her hand jerking in his grasp, but he doesn't relinquish his hold, and she doesn't fight it. She does cast her eyes to the cement flooring and confess in hushed tones, "I can't think straight today. I've never been this humiliated in my life – and that's saying something. And I feel like an idiot, because why should I even  _care_ what people – what she– I'm thirty-seven years old." She shakes her head and exhales heavily, and Robin lets go of her hand, but only to raise his palms to her biceps. She tenses, a reflex born out of months that left purple bruises and rattled teeth, and Robin's hands lift away just as soon as they've landed.

He murmurs an apology, a sincere one, and it soothes something in her – the fact that he's remembered so quickly what she doesn't like, and that he looks so contrite at having forgotten in the first place. But it was a gentle touch, a soft one, not one meant to hurt or hold, and his hands are still hovering close enough that she can feel the phantom heat of him against her skin. So she shakes her head and murmurs, "It's fine. I'm just edgy today; you can touch, it's okay."

He does, his palms warm against arms gone chilled from robust air conditioning, and the heat seeps into her like a balm. Her eyes drop shut to savor the sensation as his hands stroke gently up and down.

"There's no shame in wanting to spare yourself embarrassment, love."

"It's childish," she insists, "Stupid."

 _You stupid girl_ , she hears in her head – Mother might as well be right next to her, whispering poison into her ear,  _Only someone as foolish as you could end up married to a stranger in Las Vegas of all places. How terribly banal and pedestrian. This would never have happened if you'd just–_

But then there's Robin, banishing the spectre of Cora, with his voice like whiskey, smooth and low, "It's not. It's self-preservation, that's all. You're allowed to take care of yourself."

Dark lashes flutter open at that, full lips drawing into a deeper frown. She'd been told that before, in therapy, after Leo. That she's allowed self-care. Is Robin self-care? Is this taking care of herself, or is this taking advantage? Or is it running? Letting Mother run her life? Is Kathryn right about that? If she just had more  _time_ , she could weigh all the options, could think clearly enough to determine a sane course of action, could work out the answers to all these questions that are circling around and around in her head. But she doesn't  _have_  time, she has right now. She has Zelena waiting on her word to make a phone call, and more fucking congratulatory texts coming in, and Robin standing in front of her trying to be impartial. She thinks? Or is he trying to sway her? Is this– Is she–

She's short of breath.

She can feel it suddenly, that  _feeling,_  all too familiar and crawling up her spine, anxiety tightening its grip around her throat, and she brings a hand to her chest, presses her palm hard there and swallows heavily.  _Not now, not like this, please not now…_

"Damnit," she hisses, her voice strangled and tight, and Robin's hands go still against her arms.

"Are you alright?"

She doesn't answer, too busy trying to talk herself out of the rising tide of a panic attack, but it's a futile effort. It always is.

He doesn't seem to need her response, though, not if his is any indication. He's all soft tones and soothing murmurs, assuring her, "I'm right here," and, "Just breathe slowly…"

Dark eyes meet blue, and she feels naked but somehow steady, his palms an anchor. She gives a hint of a nod and tries to breathe deeply, to breathe slowly, but air still comes in ragged and shallow and catches in her throat. Fuck. Damnit. Everyone is watching, they have to be, they must be – her gaze flits to the side, but she'd need eyes in the back of her head to see their friends right now.

Still, he catches the movement, he catches everything, is hyper aware of her, and it's unnerving and reassuring, both at the same time. "They're all talking," he tells her quietly, "They're not looking. Just breathe."

"I'm sorry." Her voice is thin, breathy. But he'll have none of it.

"Nothing to be sorry about," he tells her in that same gentle voice, and she thinks he'd be good with horses. Daniel had loved horses, had had that same gentle tone when they'd gone spooked. "You're overwhelmed; it's alright. Just breathe. There's no rush."

But "There is," she insists. "I go home tonight; we have to decide. I have to decide. We either sit down at that table as two people who are going to be married, or we sit down at that table and tell them the truth."

"Then we'll decide," he murmurs, thumbs stroking her skin. Her toes are tingling and the hand not pressed to her chest hangs like lead, but she can feel his thumbs, soft and light.

She can't breathe, rubs her own hand up and down her sternum in a vain attempt to force the muscles underneath to relax but it does no good, and they have to decide, and–

"Talk to me," he coaxes gently.

"I feel trapped," she blurts. Because she does, she is trapped. She is married, and stuck there. Again. She's trapped again, and her head is starting to feel like a balloon.

"You're not trapped," he tells her. "You're free to choose." The laugh that bubbles up out of her sounds manic, and she flushes with embarrassment and clenches her jaw tightly. "You are," he insists steadily. "You have all the control, Regina. You can go, right now. Or next week, or next month, or next year. Nothing is tying you to me, and I won't fight you. You're not trapped. This is your choice."

"But if I– People will– I can't control their–"

"You're right." His palms slide down, up, down, then settle again. "You can't control how people react, but you're in control of yourself."

Another choking laugh rasps out of her, and she can feel her skittering pulse, her skin feels hot, the back of her neck is sweating. "I can't even breathe, Robin. I can't control– I have no control– Why are you so fucking calm right now?"

"Because you're having a panic attack," Robin says plainly, "and you need me to be calm."

"But doesn't– Aren't you–?" She swallows heavily and tugs at the collar of her blouse. It's not tight around her neck, but she still feels stifled.

"It's only a year," he reminds, letting go of her arms then and reaching for her hand. She feels rudderless, all of a sudden. Adrift and unmoored. He focuses on the one hand, takes it in both of his and rubs his palms over either side, stroking fingers, and wrist, and back. "And we're not going to live together. It'll be like dating with tax breaks and no sex."

Her laugh then is genuine, if a bit strained, and she nods, nods again. Right. This isn't– this isn't a commitment, this isn't cause for panic. (She knows that the panic doesn't need a cause, that's not how panic attacks work, this is not a proportional response to the ring on her left hand, it's just a panic attack, she can get through a panic attack, she can, she will breathe again soon.)

"What if I went to the wedding," he suggests, and she frowns, shakes her head. What is he talking about? "Either way," he clarifies. "I'll go with you, no matter what. Or not go, if that's what you want. But I can go as your plus-one. As the man you married on accident last weekend, but discovered was terribly charming and devilishly handsome, and so you brought him as your date, the first of perhaps many dates." He winks at her, and she rolls her eyes, an impulse she's incredibly grateful for because it's incongruous with her panic and maybe that means it's easing a little. "I'll tell the story of how we met, and how I charmed the pants off you–"

"Maybe leave that part out," she mutters, and he laughs, only just then realizing the literal reality of what he'd said, apparently.

"Right," he chuckles, "We won't talk about your lack of pants. And your mother can go get stuffed." He's still rubbing her hand, and it's not the anchor that his grip was, but it's soothing in a different way. He really would be good with horses… Or small children (he has a small child, she remembers, a fact that does nothing to ease her riotous emotions). "Or," he continues, "I can go as your husband. As the man you've been quietly seeing for months, who loves you and stands by you, and we can tell everyone how we met when I hired you to redo Roland's room, and how I proposed in some terribly romantic way, and how you've been hiding me in a cupboard under the stairs whenever your mother comes."

It gets him another laugh, and she's suddenly grateful, so grateful that he's standing there, that he's talking, that he's probing for ways to disarm her, to loosen the grip of her body's sudden rebellion. He smiles at her, his palms covering more ground now, coasting over her forearm as well.

"Either way, you won't face the firing squad alone. I made a vow to you, darling, and whether it's for the next few days, or the next year, I will be your partner in this." His touch spreads to her other arm now, too, then slides, up, up, up, and comes back to rest at her biceps. "Just tell me how."

It's another option – another path toward honesty, a step away from marriage. A middle ground between  _wife_  (which has her breaking out in a cold sweat every other time she hears it) and  _complete drunken idiot_  (her mother will never let her live this down, no matter what). He could do it, she thinks. Robin could take a room by storm, show up on her arm, and make this whole weekend sound like a terribly funny story. He'd leave out the panic attacks, and the arguments, and make the whole thing into a comedy, and she'd laugh, self-deprecating, with hot cheeks and too much champagne, and her family would move on. She would move on.

Her mother would not.

Cora would still be there with her snide remarks, her belittling side comments, and she never did react well to public shows of one-upmanship. She'd come after Regina later, with words like fists. She'd fume and plot and then she'd annihilate her in private. Regina can handle that, she's handled it all her life.

But she might not have to this time. This time, she could have a… partner.

She's been staring at a spot on his chest, on the point of his v-neck collar, but her gaze flicks up to his again now. He's concerned but still calm, so calm, his hands warm on her biceps, she can feel the heat dampening between his skin and hers, and something just… clicks. She draws a deeper breath, her chest loosening infinitesimally, her tensed muscles relaxing slightly under his touch.

She's safe. She feels safe. The panic is still there, but with Robin's gaze steady on hers, it's more bearable. He's going to stand there until she's okay, until they find a solution that works for her, she realizes, and it has her swallowing heavily. Is this what support feels like? Or maybe trust? (Seductive, indeed.)

It's an odd feeling, one that filters through her like a drug, makes her bones dissolve and take much of her tension with them.

It's shockingly easy all of a sudden to give him an answer: "Let's do it."

**.::.**

Robin's brows lift slightly, a little bubble of dangerous hope rising in his chest.

"Which?" he asks her, and when she answers him with  _A year_ , he can't help the way the corner of his mouth turns up in a smirk. "Alright then," he says, rubbing his hands on her gooseflesh-covered arms again, willing warmth into her. "A year it will be."

She nods, and breathes deep, exhales slowly, and he can see the way she's finally settling, her anxiety receding, although it doesn't ease completely. Her brows draw together, and she asks, "Do you really think we can pull this off? What if we can't? What if–" She shakes her head suddenly, her hands lifting to grasp at his arms. "I don't believe in marriage, Robin."

"That's alright," he shrugs, telling her, "I believe enough for the both of us." It's just the right thing to say, the final thing that snaps her out of the state she's been in, and suddenly she's the woman he woke with yesterday, scoffing and glaring (less heat this time, more affection) and telling him he's a ridiculous sap.

"I am. But I'm  _your_  ridiculous sap now," he reminds, her laugh in response a little thin around the edges. Too soon, maybe?

"This year is going to try my patience, isn't it?" she mutters, and Robin grins, then chuckles, fingers sliding to grip her own again and let them dangle between them. A connection, but he hopes not one that will stifle.

"Probably," he concedes. "But I'm sure the feeling will be mutu–"

He's interrupted by a shout of "Oi!" both their heads whipping toward the sound. "Can the happy couple stop making moon eyes over there and come join the rest of us? Some of us would like to get a move on our daytime drinking."

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to interrupt the grown-ups when they're talking?" Robin calls back to Will, ignoring his  _Not that I can recall,_ and adding, "We'll be there in a moment."

But Regina squeezes his hands and then disentangles herself from them, assuring him, "It's alright. Let's go."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah." She gives him a little smile, her fingers sliding into her pockets and rooting there. "You're right. It's just a few people, and if we stick to this, we can keep it like that. It's better this way. And I'm free to go whenever I like, so there's no danger in it."

There's not, and he wants her to feel light, to feel free, so he fixes her with his best smirk, and teases, "Too right, Mrs. Mills-Locksley."

Regina lets out a scoff, her eyes sliding heavenward, and she turns toward their waiting friends, muttering as she goes, "Nevermind, I want a divorce."

The smile spread across her face as she'd said it has him chuckling, unbothered by her empty threats as he follows dutifully after his wife.


End file.
